writing

"Tweeting is talking into the abyss, filling a void in your life by avoiding real human contact."

"A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled."

"Every writer I know has trouble writing."

"The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him...A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."

"What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out."

"An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional."

"Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control."

"Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied."

"I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything."

"Writer's block is real. It happens. Some days you sit down at theold typewriter, put your fingers on the keys, and nothing popsinto your head. Blanko. Nada. El nothingissimo. What you dowhen this happens is what separates you from the one-of-thesedays-I'm-gonna-write-a-book crowd."

"Romanticism is the abuse of adjectives"

"Write about the emotions you fear the most."

"My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math;in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything."

"Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."

"Inspiration comes of working every day."

"Imagination is what you do with your inspiration."

"I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography."

"Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version."

"The Sacred and The Scared. Which of these two categories does your love fall under? I should write a love poem on a rolled-up scroll so you’d know which one categorizes mine."