The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers.

Little children are all writers.

Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.

Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.

Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

I think you have to remember that writing is hard; my first editor used to say that to me.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.