"I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity."
"you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."
"When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest."
"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings."
"Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff?"
"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work."