Writing teaches writing. Your writing will teach you how to write if you work hard enough and have enough faith.

Envy is one of the scorpions of the mind, often having little to do with the objective, external world.

Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing.

To gain the book, one must give up all hope for the book. It is the only way the book can get written.

I spent the morning smashing fliesI killed one fly against the doorjamb. Another I stalked into the kitchen...A third fly wavered by the kitchen window. When I swatted, a wild ferocious swing, a whole trembling crowd shot from the window like pebbles from a blunderbuss, then settled back. My heart pounded. I felt flushed with disgust and irritation. Why must I always have such obstacles to my writing?

Fiction structures an experience for the reader to live through. ... That is why people read: to have experiences.

How we learn is what we learn.