writing

"The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?"

"one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood."

"If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write."

"There are very few innocent sentences in writing."

"A novel is a mirror walking along a main road."

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

"you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."

"Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?"

"If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings."

"If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?"

"Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind."

"I'm an aspiring writer.' I hate that phrase. You're either a writer or you're not."

"The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor."

"Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word."

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."

"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."

"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf"came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf"and there was no wolf behind him."

"Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god."

"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

"Only by examining our personal biases can we truly grow as artists; only by cultivating empathy can we truly grow as people."