I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a...

The trap I remember forever: how they got out I have long since forgotten.

There is more to writing than playing with words.

God pity the poor novelist.

He found solace in what he wrote. It was an attempt to discover who he was at the moment.

(2002) In Rome, month upon month, I struggled with how to structure the book about my father (He already had the water, he just had to discover jars). At one point I laid each chapter...

To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.

doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating...

I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.

The Author To Her BookThou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,Who after birth did’st by my side remain,Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,Who thee abroad exposed to public view,Made thee in...

Why write about the past? Well, there’s more of it.

Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument....

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

Sometimes writing is like playing with fire… like trying to tame an uncontrollable beast.

Writing fiction is one of the greatest forms of empathy. It’s not enough to simply write from the perspective of your characters…you have to feel what they feel.

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose...

Write until your fingers break. It may be the cure for everything.

Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere. While others who have something to say or who want to be effectual,...

These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that...

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being concious of living.

Writing poetry is supernatural. Or, it should be.

JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter manuscript was rejected 12 times. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times. Gone With The Wind was rejected 38 times. I was immensely proud to have beaten them all.

You know you’re a writer when the words don’t stop!

But it’s still a big fight to get the work you’re really excited about onto shelves. And past that, convincing someone to pay you to do the work that you are most excited about is...

When you’ve got a thing to say, Say it! Don’t take half a day.When your tale’s got little in itCrowd the whole thing in a minute! Life is short–a fleeting vapor–Don’t you fill the whole...

Content is King. Promotion is Queen

Writing barely differs from Talking and Reading. It appoints your hand while they engage your mouth and eyes respectively. The trio need the mind to combine sensible words from a meaningful arrangement of the ‘simple’...

People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.

True writing is not an art or science but it’s an anthem to preach own soul

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.

…writing is not a performance but a generosity.

Don’t you love that about the novel? The capaciousness?” he said.

I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing.

Maybe the key to finding the perfect song is simply rewriting the lyrics.

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you’re...

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his...

We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid...

Writing is like bungee jumping for the soul…you take a deep breath, plunge into the abyss and hope the rope tethering you to the real world doesn’t snap.

I wasn’t born to cook or clean,but to read and write,if you don’t like me the way I am,then go fly a kite.

Use what you stand for and what you oppose as a foundation to write great content that resonates with readers and creates a ripple effect.

Step out from behind the words. When you’re a writer you can imagine that the words speak for you and are you, but they’re not. You are this living breathing bad hair day kind of...

Good writing ain’t necessarily good reading.

If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.

I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

The best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming.

Failing to writer everyday doesn’t mean that you’ve given up, though a chapter a day – keeps writers block away!

But the truth is, it’s not the idea, it’s never the idea, it’s always what you do with it.”(Online journal entry for January 31, 2009)

… The Book is more important than your plans for it. You have to go with what works for The Book ~ if your ideas appear hollow or forced when they are put on paper,...