An author needs a lot more than one person to succumb to his literary seductive charms, but, like Saul, he must realize that he doesn’t have to–and indeed cannot–capture the hearts of every possible reader...

I read not so long ago about the construction of a large telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert, where rainfall can average a millimetre a year and the air is fifty times as dry as the...

So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. “This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends.” He stared at the paintings for...

Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to...

…I’ve never understood the logic that says a work doesn’t need to be judged on the quality of its writing or characters simply because its genre. On the other hand, I’ve also never understood the...

Pursue knowledge as though it is your life-blood, then you will know greatness!

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.

…at seventeen I tried to write poetry confining myself solely to Anglo-Saxon words – don’t know if it helped, but it made me more concrete …

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only...

Authors – trust in your vision.

One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline…. But also every single day a kid needs a break.

… And the only way to find that honesty is to not overthink it.For your writing to come alive–to be multi-dimensional–you must barter away some control.

Good writing just isn’t that common.

If a pen can communicate our thoughts, dreams, and emotions and be the voice of our soul, then ink is the medium that carries the message.

Stories not only give us a much needed practice on figuring out what makes people tick, they give us insight into how we tick.

I’m writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.

There is an underlying rhythm to all text. Sentences crashing fall like the waves of the sea, and work unconsciously on the reader. Punctuation is the music of language. As a conductor can influence the...

The paradox of writing is that you’re trying to use words to express what words can’t express.

…each part of a story, each word if possible, was to work frontally as well as laterally… (“Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read”)

Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Don’t over edit. Don’t second-guess yourself, or your ideas. Just write. Write every day, and keep at it. Don’t get discouraged with the rejections. Tape them up on your office wall, to remind you of...

There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

Telling a story is like playing a fiddle. No one want’s to hear it when it’s done badly

Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect.

Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.

As Borges has taught us, all the books in the library are contemporary. Great poems are like granaries: they are always ready to enlarge their store.

How hard can writing be? After all, most of the words are going to be ‘and,’ ‘the,’ and ‘I,’ and ‘it,’ and so on, and there’s a huge number to choose from, so a lot...

Let your characters lead when you’re dancing together.

Don’t give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn’t what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what’s on the...

Show, don’t tell,” but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they’re like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the...

Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it. It’s the one thing in the job that will always be there, and the real pleasure in the profession. Everything else is...

poems are small moments of enlightenment

T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

Bulldogs are wonderful creatures to include in books. Besides their adorable bulldogishness, they provide the writer with a rare chance to use forms of the verb “snuffle.

Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.

So I have to create the whole thing afresh for myself each time. Probably all writers now are in the same boat. It is the penalty we pay for breaking with tradition, and the solitude...