You learn to write by doing it.

It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes.

If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.

An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy... If I try self-consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals

She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.

I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me."

In reading we must become creators.