"Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer."[1967 interview]"
"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try"to do things. You simply "must"do things."
"We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing."
"Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future."
"You must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads... may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world."
"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."