#writing

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

"I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head."

"...(W)here there's drama, there's crap."

"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."

"We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it."

"When you're missing a peice of yourself, aching, gut wrenching emptiness begins to take over. Until you find the link that completes your very soul, the feeling will never go away. Most people find a way to fill this void, material possessions, a string of relationships, affairs, food...I bear my soul, with words, for all to see."

"Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page."

"Write from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants.The market is fickle; the soul is eternal'."

"But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?"

"Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side."

"Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you."

"It has often been saidthere’s so much to be read,you never can cramall those words in your head.So the writer who breedsmore words than he needsis making a chorefor the reader who reads.That's why my belief isthe briefer the brief is,the greater the sighof the reader's relief is.And that's why your bookshave such power and strength.You publish with shorth!(Shorth is better than length.)"

"A good book isn't written, it's rewritten."

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

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

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself."

"Writers will happen in the best of families."

"I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive."

"...there were certain chapters when I stopped writing, saw the domestic situation I was in and thought, "I don't want to face this world, let's get back to the hellish one I'm imagining."