The keeping of lists was for November an exercise kin to repeating of a rosary. She considered it neither obsessive nor compulsive, but a ritual, an essential ordering of the world into tall, thin jars...

And so I’ve written everything down, too afraid of my demons and what they may say, the doubt that eats at me from the inside. Too afraid that I’ll forget and it’ll all be a...

Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone ‘stole’ an idea: no, no, a thousand...

Os poetas vão ficar no desemprego, em breve, muito em breve.Os algoritmos sem erro, perfeitos de pesadelo, escreverão melhor.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world–they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this one.

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of...

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously....

Most science fiction seemed to be written for people who already liked science fiction; I wanted to write stories for anyone, anywhere, living at any time in the history of the world.

First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need...

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn’t necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of...

Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words...

I can’t protect you from the stars, but I can tell you stories that may help at night when they are staring at you.

But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women...

The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re present in the current moment; when you’re resonating with the...

Write to your fear.

Tapping While Peeling, Back These Masks Stained With Stars…This Ashtrays My Heart, Colored In Filters Sucked Dry From The High, The Lipsticked & Famous, The Lovers The Haters, The Bent Or Those Who Live In...

The novel is a formidable mass, and it is so amorphous – no mountain in it to climb, no Parnassus or Helicon, not even a Pisgah. It is most distinctly one of the moister areas...

We are all too fixed on wrecking ourselves rather than bettering ourselves.

I spent a long time writing in obscurity. You’ll spend a long time writing in obscurity.

I am the sum of my past experience.Some people have got a lot to answer for.

Hold your pen and spare your voice.

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

dumb down” the plot or simplify words. When someone tells me he thought The Serpent’s Ring was easy to read, I know I succeeded in my storytelling.

…it’s not the stories – it’s the pain and the joy and the people who stay with you long after the stories are told …

I wish my brain had an off switch. Maybe that way I could get some sleep.

If Pavlov tested his cat he would have failed.

Growing up, I used to climb out my window onto the roof and look up at the stars. There, in the quiet, I would write stories inside my head.

There is really only one way to learn good writing: good reading and extensive writing and revising.

If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like...

Aren’t we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they’ll tell us that we make sense?

It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That —...

I couldn’t very well make a special delivery to the door of the constabulary now could I? And he’d have made the perfect scapegoat. That aura of misery he wraps himself in. So Byronesque. He’s...

You can only write what you know if you’ve lived, otherwise, you’ll just be writing words.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said, ‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.

You can quiz me on Petrarch, Medea, Shakespeare or Dante, I know them all, and I’m sorry, but they’ve all gone wrong. Dumb glorified men, writing words about love and life as if they knew....

But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s...

But I did not want to be good. I wanted to be a writer.

Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you’re at it?...

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.”[Speech upon being awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade), Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]

Writing is turning life’s worst moments into money.

Genetic code is a divine writing.

Letter To Stalin”)

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Art is a kind of magic. Creativity is mysterious, even to artists, who might be able to name their inspiration but can’t always explain how their influences and experiences came together to create this new...

Have you thought of an ending?””Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant.””Oh, that won’t do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily...