Decide that you like college life. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life.

Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or even if there is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin

No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.

An author's life is different, complex, and ongoing, while a character's remains frozen in one little story.

All the world's a stage we're going through.

One should never turn one's back on a vivid imagination.

She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.