There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?

What you have to do as a writer is . . . write day in and day out no matter what happens.

You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about

Some people are blinded by their experience. Soldiers know how important war is. Owners of slaves learn every day how inferior subject peoples are.

A student brings something to discuss, saying, "I don't know whether this is really good, or whether I should throw it in the wastebasket." The assumption is that one or the other choice is the right move. No. Almost everything we say or think or do - or write - comes in that spacious human area bounded by something this side of the sublime and something above the unforgivable.

The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.