The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director you're shopping - you're picking this actor you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away alone and get to work.

It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone unless you collaborate but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife.

What does it mean to not be alone? I've approached that question through music technology writing and other means.

Good acting is all in the writing. If it isn't on the page then it really won't make any difference. You cannot act on force of personality alone.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family friends and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone uninterrupted and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

I was very happy sitting alone at a dining room table writing a script.

The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers all alone in their studios with no one watching.

If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room alone.

I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.