Len Wein Quotes

What lasts in the reader's mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.

I love getting fan mail. Often, as a writer, you never know what your readers think of a book... you get critical reviews and sales figures, but none of that is the same as knowing you've made a person stay up all night reading, or helped them have a good cry, or really touched their life.

You always hope you'll surprise somebody with the work. If you write something human and appealing, the perfect reader could be anyone.

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.

I didn't get into writing to make money or get famous or any of that. I got into it to hit hearts, and man, when I get letters not just from the soldiers but from their kids, especially their kids, it makes it all worthwhile.

There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.

I write so that people will read what I write. I don't want to write a book that a thousand people read, or just privileged people read. I want to write a book whose emotional truth people can understand. For me, that's what it's about.

If someone gets up and walks out of the movie, it means it's really affected them.

I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives.

When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly.

I want to be inspired, and I want to hopefully do work that moves people as well.

There comes a time in every writer's life when it becomes necessary to recognize what people really care about.

It's awesome that my job is to make people have reactions.

When you have these moments where a song connects with people and creates a conversation, it's quite a humbling experience because it's like, 'Maybe there is a little bit more weight to this job than I thought there ever was before.' Which was wonderful that that happened with 'Dead Boys.'

As an artist, it feels good that we've created something that is connecting with the audience, which is what we always strive to do.

It's so easy, as a writer, to get stuck in your own head, to live in the little worlds you create. To forget that there are people out there reading your work, people who may be deeply affected by what you do, that you are writing not just for yourself, but for them.

What's important about me is that I really have, in ways I never could have foreseen when I was young, a writing career that's reached a lot of different places.

I never choose jobs because of what I think I should do. I want to feel something. And with 'Beast,' it was very much like that.

I don't think it's right to define films as commercial or art house. What's important is that a film evokes a certain emotion when it's being watched.

Before you put pen to paper, before you ring for your stenographer, decide in your own mind what effect you want to produce on your reader — what feeling you must arouse in him.

You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them there; and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic rules.

I write music, and I want people to listen to it and care about it and have it make some difference in their lives. When I'm fortunate for that to happen, then of course I feel very, very good about it.

It's really amazing to be a part of something that people have an emotional response to, even though it's a network sitcom. When you get a chance to meet fans or interact with them, you realize that there are a lot of people who the show speaks to, and that they really get something out of it, beyond just laughing. That's really fulfilling.

I've never cared about how successful or how big I was going to be. I just wanted to be part of a story that affected people, made them laugh or cry. To me, that was more important than having my face on some billboard.