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.

The first thing is how awful cancer was, the experience. When you first go through it, you're just trying to survive. But when I wrote about it, I really digested it. It was unbearable but I had practice behind me.

In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.

You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.

To encounter a fine book and have time to read it is a wonderful thing.

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.