Quote

I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That's a great way to freeze up.

— Ben Fountain

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

←Previous Next→

✓Similar Perspectives

I do tend to take lines from other lines I like, and then write around them.

— Syd Barrett

I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different.

— Mos Def

I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.

— Elmore Leonard

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

— Tavi Gevinson

When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.

— Natalie Goldberg

I want people to notice my writing abilities are real and that I'm not just stuck in one situation.

— R. Kelly

I know you're supposed to hide your influences, but I suppose I see writing as riffing, really, about whatever you have been reading or thinking about that day or that week.

— Steve Toltz

Directing my own writing, I see that I talk way too much, and everything can happen much sooner, with much less said about it.

— Christopher McQuarrie

✗Opposing Perspectives

I don't feel that I have to control every aspect of things that I appear in. You learn a lot performing someone else's writing.

— Steve Carell

I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they're actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write - not to imitate my influences - but to write something that would live up to their standards.

— Jason Isbell