“…there should be an absolute identification between the individual's experience and the writer's so that [experience] serves as the starting point for being able to write a short story or a novel later on…”

“The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself.”

“Writers are there to write, not experience things. If you want to experience things, become a pirate or a Bookhunter. If you want to write, write. If you can't find the makings of a story inside yourself, you won't find them anywhere.”

“As soon as I get an idea, I write a short story, or I start a novel, or I do a poem. So I have no need for a notebook. I do keep files of ideas and stories that didn’t quite work a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago. I come back to them later and I look through the titles.”

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

“In Mosca’s experience, a ‘long story’ was always a short story someone did not want to tell.”

“Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't…. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”

“I have never really understood the objection to art which is specifically made for a gallery or museum, and so cannot be collected by an individual or taken home. It is rather like saying that all music should be confined to the chamber work or novels to the short story.”