Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.
The images of things are not the things in themselves.
Stories distribute the suffering so that it can be borne.
A novelist is a person who lives in other people's skins.
If you feel a bump on page one hundred, it may be you went off on page fifty.