We are each a concert reverberating with our whole lives and reflecting and amplifying the world around us.

Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.

Indefinite plans get dubious results.

I often wonder if all the writers who are alcoholics drink a lot because they aren't writing. It is not because they are writers that they are drinking, but because they are writers who are not writing.

We are searching for the core of our lives; our culture intuits that writing, that ancient activity, might be the pathway...Awakening does not feed ego's needs and desires; it pulverizes the self. Our society couldn't knowingly bear such reduction, so we've tricked ourselves into the same path but call it writing.

Don't let yourself be thrown away....Continue on no matter what....Continue to make a positive effort for the good.

The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners.