“If there is only one person who has the right to write the story of your life, that person is you: write it forcefully.”

“You will have only one story,” she had said. “You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry about story. You have only one.”

“I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.”

“An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.”

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

“A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.”

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”

“There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write.”

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.”

“Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind---vividly, forcefully…”