“Writing is all about the preservation of your own voice.”

“I think even if I did try to write something that had nothing to do with women or race, which are two pretty broad topics, I don’t know how I would do that. I don’t think there’s a way that I could write a buddy cop drama, or something really far from anything I’ve written, that didn’t have pieces of race and gender. Those are parts of the world we live in, and they are things I think about. It all comes into the voice of your writing, and you can’t write about someone else’s voice. You can only write in your own.”

“To gain your own voice you have to forget about having it heard.”

“There is no reason to write pornography when your own sex life is good. Why waste time writing about it?”

“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.”

“Don't waste your tremendous voice writing messages in the sand.”

“You write while you are alive. You do not preserve them in alcohol until the moment you are ready to write about them.”

“Only write from your own passion, your own truth. That's the only thing you really know about, and anything else leads you away from the pulse.”

“Any such material, received through the board, through automatic writing, or voice communication, should be carefully studied. Generally speaking, if your messages claim to originate from famous dead personalities, you can discount them as valid information. In all probability, they are creative fabrications of your own personal subconscious.”

“Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.”