You don't teach information in a writing workshop.

Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he'd led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity - its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and self.

There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.

Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.

I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him.