Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.

The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a higher order.

Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.

The only justification for writing a novel is that it should be wonderful. Adequate is inadequate.

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of rearing and peering from the bent tip of a grass blade, looking for a route.

In literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death.

Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page.