We have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.

If you don't hear His voice so let Him hear yours. When prayers go up blessings descend.

Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.

When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.

A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.

I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.