writing

"A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."

"Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination."

"One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar."

"The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience."

"I want to write a poem about "Truth,""Honor,""Dignity,"and whether the toilet paper should roll over or under when you pull on it."

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do."

"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it."

"There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that."

"Write what should not be forgotten."

"Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story."

"When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature."

"You either have to write or you shouldn't be writing. That's all."

"When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off."

"Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives."

"Toby: All right. It couldn't have gone far, right?Sam: No.Toby: Somewhere in this building...is our talent."

"When I started writingI was a sick teenagedfuck inside who partlythought I was the newMarquis de Sade, a bodydoomed to communicatewith Satan who was us-ing my sickness as hishome away from home,and there’s your proof."

"In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it."

"It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book."

"Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence"

"Too many irons, not enough fire."