You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year

I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them.

I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cry, thinking I myself was weeping, and I felt my face and it was dry. Then I looked at the window and thought: Why, yes, it's just the rain, the rain, always the rain, and turned over, sadder still, and fumbled about for my dripping sleep and tried to slip it back on.

No," said a voice, "the only thing wrong on a night like that is that there is a world and you must come back to it.

God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.