“A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.”

“Everybody can write; writers can't do anything else.”

“In the case of a writer like Musil writing is often a graceful act, like a silvery fish leaping.”

“The thing about writing in America—and I just recently understood this—is that writers in America have an arc. You enter writing as a career, you expect to be successful, and really it’s the wrong thing. It’s not a profession. A professional writer is a joke. You write because you can’t do anything else, and then you have another job. I’m always telling my students go to law school or become a doctor, do something, and then write. First of all you should have something to write about, and you only have something to write about if you do something. If you just sit there, and you’re a writer, you’re bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals. Writing is not a profession. It’s a calling. It’s almost holy…”

“Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.”

“To be a writer you have to write -- and no academic degree is going to do the writing for you.”

“You do not so act as to avoid Hell and enter Heaven.”

“The man who speaks and writes about art should refrain from censuring or pontificating. He will thus avoid doing anything foolish, for in the presence of primordial depth all art is but dream and nature.”

“The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.”

“And perhaps there is no advice to give a writer more important than this: — Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure.”