Even an ice cream parlor - a definite advantage - does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore.

You don't need to go to a therapist, you don't need to do all kinds of things. If you want to write, you physically have to do it.

Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.

We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.

Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.

It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you can have if you get over there." And usually if I got over there, I would start writing. Sometimes I need get out of the house and go to a café and write. Sometimes I'll write with other friends to get myself going. And sometimes I just say "Ok, Nat, enough. Go one hour. Keep your hand going." I'll do whatever it takes.

Anything we fully do is an alone journey.