Writers do not have the privilege of sleep. There is always a story coming alive in their heads, constantly composing. Whether they choose it or not.

An author is an artist who paints a picture in the imagination of the reader.

The painter does not conceive himself as existing in himself, he conceives himself as a reflection of the objects he has put into his pictures and he lives in the reflections of his pictures, a...

For your birthday I’ll give you 100 copies of your least favorite author’s book, and they’ll all be autographed. Now, should I sign the cover, or the inside flap?

I am smiling a big adopted-orphan smile as I write this … I still love scribbling the word – WRITER – any time on a form, questionnaire, document asks for my occupation. Fine, I write...

My heart’s scripture tastes foreign in the mouths of cowards and on the tongues of those who have never breathed inthe moon and breathed out the world.

Before I’ll take my clone on as a pupil in the craft of writing, he must prove his worthiness. He must write 100 thoughts down, of which 10 might be interesting. If he’s done that,...

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

Spelling Bees are useless and unnecessary competitions. Before Microsoft Word and Google, Spelling Bees had value, but now they are all superflewus.

If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!

You were meant to write this book.

I realize that a writer’s business is setting fire to Piggy Sneed-and trying to save him-again and again; forever.

I’ll never be a good writer, and no chance of being a good actor.

I would write my tears, weeping out my pain – I would empty my veins for ink.

99% of natural poets discovered their talents through love letters.

To heal our world we must be silent; willing to listen to the roars of the wounded. We must teach eachother how to feel, only than can an entire nation grow in peace, as the...

…the making of stories is only one part of my craft -mainly, I’m a heart whisperer…

When you are young and strong…you can stay alive on your hatred”….but realized later “They can take everything from me except my mind and heart”Nelson Mandela from Long Walk to Freedom

Sometimes to self-discover you must self-destruct.

You’re not a bad person, you’re just a little bit different and I’m a sucker for that.

As a writer, I see the saga of your life in a single glimpse. It may be inaccurate, but my version doesn’t lack for creativity.

I had a little epiphany when I was a writer at ‘Chicago’ magazine. I sat down to dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. Somebody poured a white dessert wine with chocolate cake. It was a wine I...

Ideally, love is unconditional; practically, it is more often the opposite.

I can’t say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me.

Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it.

The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody’s best friend and only true enemy — the...

That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise...

I’m a writer. An amateur photographer. An actor.

Life is a story within a story.

Letting go looks different for everyone, I think. Sometimes it’s as simple as waking up one day and deciding not to let your past rule you. Other times it’s a process; slow moving and painful,...

The novelist is more like a pregnant woman who delivers her own child unaided. A messy procedure, with lots of groaning.

At that moment, sitting on that park bench, The Writer was overcome by an indefinable sadness not completely ascribable to the state in which The Mother was now, nor the desperation of his decades-long creative...

Some people make you want to be a better person, and that, for me, is the purest form of love.

We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of ‘proving theorems.’ Is a writer’s job mainly that of ‘writing sentences?

You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians...

A writer uses his pen as a gun to kill readers.

As a writer, as a lyricist, you’re just trying to make sure that you’re not repeating yourself. And that’s a danger for a lot of people. So for me, I just try to keep taking...

Love allows us to remember the joy, and forget the pain. That’s why I write things down, to help me remember.

The approach to digital culture I abhor would indeed turn all the world’s books into one book, just as Kevin (Kelly) suggested. It might start to happen in the next decade or so. Google and...

There was a writer in the ’20s called Christopher Morley, who I remember a little bit of, who had some influence on me, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.

As a child I was an inveterate liar. As opposed to now, I am a Novelist.

I don’t remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come...

A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.

I’m a busy author with a sense of Humor, so hang, it’s a bumpy ride”!

I write to create a sky where the moon can touch the sun and not get burned.

The serious writer was aware of a paradox at the heart of his art: his inner world, the place of the strongest stories, was infinite, but it was also embedded in – if this was...

Wherever a writer grew up, they’re obviously influenced by that area, and I’m sure their characters are pulled from those experiences.

I’m a writer first and an editor second… or maybe third or even fourth. Successful editing requires a very specific set of skills, and I don’t claim to have all of them at my command.

Every word I write is another stroke that takes me to the shore of a completed book.

How could I live above the water or breathe under it. How could I swim in darkness consumed in an ocean of you? Falling or flying towards you, losing or finding myself in you and...