Writing for Self Quotes

Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.

Some say I'm an overnight success. Well, that was a very long night that lasted about 10 years. But while I do, of course, now feel the pressure having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.

The best person to write for is yourself—and what better place to start than in a journal.

What's the point in being an unpopular writer? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. For me it doesn't, anyway.

When I sat down to write 'Rules of Civility,' I didn't write it for anybody but myself. I wasn't trying to make my mark or make money. I wasn't anxious about feeding my kids or whether my father would be proud of me.

I write pretty much every day, but I don't have any desire to publish anything.

I think writing and singing go together, but I treat them as two separate careers because I write for others. If I'm writing for myself, I prefer to be with the producer. And then we can vibe out and throw ideas back and forth, and I'll basically let the producer play me a bunch of beats until I vibe with one.

I tend not to think about the reading public at all, or the business, when I'm writing.

When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don't overexplain, then anyone can overhear me.

If there is one 'scientific' discovery I am proud of, it is the discovery of the habit of writing without publication in mind.

I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends, and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper.

I do not write for the reader to come, but for him who is here, short of reading the text on my shoulder.

I write for the love of writing. If I never published another book, I would still be writing stories.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

I hardly ever think about audience. I just try to tell a story for me. I write the kind of story I would like to read.

I do not write for an audience.

It's possible I'm a weird person, you know, and if I could only write for people who are like me, I wouldn't have any audience at all. Ultimately, I'm my audience. I'm writing stories for myself. I don't have kids of my own, and I don't hang around kids all that much. Maybe that puts me at a disadvantage.

I didn't write to be famous; I wrote to keep a record.

When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader.

To a great extent, I still write for myself, write what amuses me. Fortunately, I have a quirky sort of strange sense of humor that appeals to other people and that's good. I still sort of write for myself though there are some areas of the book I feel I have to put in and I feel I have to deliver.

I was writing for myself, not to be published. I was writing diaries, even letters, to myself or to anyone I was angry at. Sometimes they weren't to a person, they were just to the universe - a bit like penning daydreams or isolated thoughts.

Writing for yourself is like exposing your diary. It can be a little embarrassing at times, but if it helps somebody get through the day just by hearing a song, it's well worth it.

Overall, I just love performing so much that when I write, I want to write for me. I kind of learned that on 'Mr. Show,' that even in an environment where you can write whatever you want - which is what that environment was - I realized, 'Man, I still want to be the guy out in front.'