Quotes About Motivation

I wasn't Lennon, or I wasn't McCartney. I was me. And the only reason I started to write songs was because I thought, 'Well, if they can write them, I can write them.'

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it.

I must never write when I do not want to write.

I wish I could write easily. I'm one of those guys who's visited by the muse when things are dire.

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, 'Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth.'

For 20 years, Simon & Schuster asked me, 'Why don't you write your autobiography?'

It's not like I wake up every morning and just can't wait to write. It is my job. It's much easier to not write. I'd rather read. This is my income. This is what supports my family. Having a child is a pretty big incentive to keep working.

I write songs every day, 14 times a day.

I know. I'm lazy. But I made myself a New Years resolution that I would write myself something really special. Which means I have 'til December, right?

The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.

Mike is the craziest person. He's scattered; he's all over the place. When you hold him down and tell him, 'This is what you're doing,' he's fantastic. But you have to hold him down. Like, when he had to write his verse for 'Hello Nasty,' we had to take his phone away to get him to do it.

I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.

In the beginning, I was a stay-at-home dad. So I could actually focus on being a rapper. I could write. I could come up with ideas.

All work is a process of failure. Every single thing I write, I look at it and go, 'Do better. That's not good enough. Do better.' And so, that keeps me up at night.

Attempting to write vocal oriented songs to me felt like going through the motions and if you are going to go through the motions you might as well just do any gig that caused you to do repetitive motions like banging a hammer or serving fries.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.

Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.

I've been a writer since I was 13. I've been writing scripts and having pitch meetings. So, when I do see people like Brit Marling getting things done, it lets me know that it's possible. It basically just tells me, 'Dude, get to work!' For some reason, I think that I'm not doing enough work.