“Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.”

“No novels, since you just read them once and never again.”

“Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.”

“What do you do when Mom leaves you alone like this? (Kat)
I write romance novels. (Acheron)”

“It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else.”

“Try it. You don't have to do it ever again if you don't want to. But try it once. Try everything once.”

“It never ceases to amaze me how often I ask people, “What do you really want?”

“I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.”

“Writing a novel is not very difficult: you simply write ten pages a day for a month and then you have a novel.”

“With so many people doing so much writing, great writing is hard to find ... If you succeed in attaining a position that allows you to do something great, if you do something that really is great, and if you realize that it’s great, there’s still one more hurdle: You have to convince others that it’s great. This will require writing.”