Reference Material Quotes

I use the dictionary all the time when I'm reading or working on scripts.

Wikipedia has a way of compiling compendiums of information on subjects.

I keep a big, fat dictionary with me while writing.

Before we shot the pilot, I knew what 'Dallas' was, but I actually was too young to remember the details of the show. I didn't have my hands on the DVDs, so I YouTubed everything I could of J.R.

Photography started as a means of getting reference material for my paintings of nature subjects.

I suspect that relatively few people will sit down and read 1250 pages [ of The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures.] all the way through from cover to cover. There may be some, but not everybody. But there are many, many, many different Christian, theological, pastoral, specialisms that are covered by one section or another of the book and this will become, therefore, a resource volume for many people.

When you're writing a book, you don't want it to be overly trendy because you want people to enjoy it for years and refer back to it.

The colonists had no library at their disposal; but the engineer was a book which was always at hand, always open at the page which one wanted, a book which answered all their questions, and which they often consulted.

I spend much more time looking at art history and at different references to art than I do at actual objects.

There are people who don't like to use other films as research, but I love it.

I don't believe Wikipedia about anything. I don't go there for anything but keywords.

When you're walking in, basically like a kid a candy store, to a project where there's an endless canon of material, you have to step back from it as a self-indulgence. You have to look at it neutrally.

I rush to add that I find the Web infinitely useful for rustling up information, settling arguments or locating the legends of rock stars.

I've been in 'Who's Who' and I know what's what, but it'll be the first time I ever made the dictionary.

Nobody reads a reference book to be amused, much less charmed.

In the university library, we know when a book has been used in a class or put on reserve... or while it was out, did somebody call it back in. It turns out to be a pretty good indicator of how relevant the work is at that time.