I've grown up on a diet of metaphors. If young writers would find those writers who can give them metaphors by the bushel and the peck, then they'll become better writers - to learn how to capsualize things and present them in metaphorical form.

Everything that happens before Death is what counts.

I used to take my short stories to girls' homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

Write a thousand words a day and in three years you'll be a writer!

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

When your dawn theater sounds to clear your sinuses: don't delay. Jump. Those voices may be gone before you hit the shower to align your wits. Speed is everything. The 90-mph dash to your machine is a sure cure for life rampant and death most real. Make haste to live. Oh, God, yes. Live. And write. With great haste.

Too late, I found you can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.