Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet.‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.’‘Oh, a writer, eh?’‘Yes.’‘Are you sure?’‘No, I’m not.’‘What do you write?’‘Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel.’‘A novel,...

He cut away the insignificant and incidental. Those bits were tossedaway from the juicy core pieces. He slid the excess tissue and tendons away and reorganized the good bits on his plate. Those pieces were...

Having had virtually no contact with the outside world for the last few weeks, Evan had temporarily forgotten the social norms governing shopping conduct or approaching celebrities in public.

Are you imperfect, romantically irrational, ridiculously fearless, and utterly illogical? You’re my ideal reader, friend, partner. I’m your fan.

Beware of being only a writer.

At least I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if...

A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist...

Fact is just fiction with different storytellers

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into...

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person,...

Good or bad, words have an impact on each of us. As a writer, I can only hope that the effects my words have on others are more often good than bad.

I am drawn mostly, insistently to the human voice. How powerful and necessary the solo voice, the experience of being someone, something else for a little while. This is and will remain literature’s killer app,...

I love the sound of words, the feel of them, the flow of them. I love the challenge of finding just that perfect combination of words to describe a curl of the lip, a tilt...

Bea stared at the pencils as if they were enemies.

I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the...

Artistry is the dance of color & form, whether visual, musical, or sparked in the imagination by the written word.

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Sometimes I think that creativity is a matter of seeing, or stumbling over, unobvious similarities between things—like composing a fresh metaphor, but on a more complex scale. One night in Hiroshima it occurred to me...

[T]he success of every novel — if it’s a novel of action — depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, “What are my big scenes?” and then get...

Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can’t.

The act of writing, it seems to me, makes up a shelter, allows space to what would otherwise be hidden, crossed out, mutilated. Sometimes writing can work toward a reparation, making a sheltering space for...

People ask me how to start writing. I tell them that ‘Creating Creates Creativity’. Put your notes and outline aside. Start with one anecdote or conversation, and that will lead to another and another. It’s...

Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.

There seemed no reason why she shouldn’t try writing something in between, but she was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same – you couldn’t just soak it up and then...

Follow the rules until you make them.

I am Envy…I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.

That kiss was amazing; it had all the passion and longing we had been holding onto for so long. That is when the dam finally broke for me and I started crying. I knew right...

Why write stories? To join the conversation.

You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.

Expansion. That is the idea the novelist must cling to. Not completion. Not rounding off, but opening out.

A word after a word after a word is power.

Go away and don’t be silly. You might as well ask what is the female angle on an equilateral triangle.

The nature of poemsIs a matter of words and deedsAn intimate encounter of voiceIn the ache of the heartIn the labor of breathingA hesitant casting of eyesAway from the mundane to seeThat delicate and shiny...

To be a successful fiction writer you have to write well, write a lot … and let ‘em know you’ve written it! Then rinse and repeat.

Tell me this–if you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life–if you knew you’d never have a line published–would you still go on writing–would you?”Of course I would,’ said Emily...

The pen is mightier than the sword!

People are not meant to be alone, as the word itself is made of two syllables.

Occupation: WriterOccupational Hazard: Carpel tunnelSolution: Wrist guards to bed or my hands do all the sleeping Perspective: I’ve decided my wrist guards have turned me into a Ninja Superhero that hides in the shadows

[The Internet] affects democracy… As more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided...

Souls are more important than stories, yes. But stories are a window to the soul. Without stories, the soul suffocates.

Though it’s true that (dictionary-maker Samuel) Johnson sometimes seem to feel that the language was in decline, he didn’t rail against it with (Jonathan) Swift’s anger. Instead, he hoped the example of his dictionary would...

No one can tell you what you can and cannot put in your book. So be brave and just write!

You’ve got to be smart enough to write and stupid enough not to think about all the things that might go wrong.

At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether...

Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul.

Books are like horcruxes–without all the evil–because a piece of the author goes into each one.

If I only had one reader in my entire life, that reader would be all that I needed to continue writing.

The survival of poor opinions can make a thinker feel as though he is failing humanity.

Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, by stretching and bending it.

L’editore mandò cento copie del volume, per tutto compenso dell’opera: il valore non superava quello dell’olio e del vino rubati in cantina; e il grosso pacco piombò in casa come un bolide sconquassatore. La madre...