“If you don't see the book you want on the shelves, write it.”
“Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.”
“I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.”
“If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.”
Source: Epigrams, p. 353
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
Essay, "Listening". p.59
Writing Down the Bones (1986)
Source: The City of Dreaming Books
“If you write another book, I’ll divorce you.”
Afterword to The Dud Avocado (2006)
Context: My success took another road. I complained to Rod Steiger, "The book’s hardly been out and everyone wants to know what I’m going to write next. I mean, don’t I get to rest on my laurels?" In fact I had no idea of writing a second novel. "No," said Rod, answering my question. "Succeeding only means you get another chance to try to do it again."
I thought about it, and then Ken said to me, "If you write another book, I’ll divorce you." I sat down and started my second novel and wondered that I knew its beginning and its end. I put it aside to write a play which went on in London.… I went back to my novel and finished it. It was published to good reviews but now there were a couple of stinkers. I tore them up and flushed them down the toilet. I’d become a writer.
In 1964 Ken and I got divorced. Well, we did bad things to each other. Now, some three decades later, I look back in gratitude at him: I look back in wonder.
