Richard Price Quotes

I don`t need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they`re going to get into, and I`ll write myself out of their jam.

I write because I can`t imagine not writing.

If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I`m ready to start writing. Then it`s a constant spreading out of that five minutes.

I`d love to be a saxophonist. I don`t know why, but I pretend I`m the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.

If you`re writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can`t not write about 9-11; you can`t not integrate it. My main character`s view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn`t have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged.

I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can`t accurately judge it. I`m too close to it. If I read it ten times I`ll have ten different reactions.

I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I`m just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.

I started thinking about my relationship with my students; I`m this guy who comes in from book - and movie - land and descends on angel wings into their classroom.

Writers spend three years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It`s enough to make you lose your mind day by day.

You can`t take a character anywhere they don`t expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.

I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does. You`re a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You`re a writer because this is what you do.

The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.

I have offices all over the place and I avoid work everywhere. I don`t like to write - I like to be finished.