It is so conceited and timid to be ashamed of one's mistakes. Of course they are mistakes. Go on to the next.

If only I had a wife!" I used to think, "who could stay home and keep the children happy, why I could support six of them. A cinch.

...writing is not a performance but a generosity.

The only way to write well, so that people believe what we say and are interested or touched by it, is to slough off all pretentiousness and attitudinizing.

I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.