“My wish has always been to write my own story, to create a life that’s worth writing about. But is a story worth anything at all if I have no one to tell it to?”
“Why do I write? Out of fear. Out of fear that the memory of the people I write about might go lost. Out of fear that the memory of myself might get lost. Or even just to be shielded by a story, to slip inside a story and stop being recognizable, controllable, subject to blackmail.”
“I never said you were supposed to be a jailer, i only said a normal person would have questioned why someone would create a decoy nun and then crawl out the window.”
“My characters are quite as real to me as so-called real people; which is one reason why I m not subject to what is known as loneliness. I have plenty of company.”
“Don t quit. It s very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it s very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can t get fired if you don t write, and most of the time you don t get rewarded if you do. But don t quit.”
“You should really stay true to your own style. When I first started writing, everybody said to me, Your style just isn t right because you don t use the really flowery language that romances have. My romances - compared to what s out there - are very strange, very odd, very different. And I think that s one of the reasons they re selling.”
“Don t put down too many roots in terms of a domicile. I have lived in four countries and I think my life as a writer and our family s life have been enriched by this. I think a writer has to experience new environments. There is that adage: No man can really succeed if he doesn t move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer.”
“You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I m doing the best I can - buy me or not - but this is who I am as a writer.”
“You have to invest yourself as a reader to be a good writer.”
“...if you ve got writer s block, you aren t empty - maybe it s just like Twitter - overwhelmed, and loading seems to be taking a while...”
“Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer s habit to remember nothing good of himself. I have usually forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it. Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.”
“A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.”
“I write because I love it, not because I excel at it. But because I write, I shall slowly excel at it.”
“What a writer has to do is write what hasn t been written before or beat dead men at what they have done.”
“If you re a writer, the answer to everything is yes.”
“I m either going to be a writer or a bum.”
“I am a writer. Therefore. I am not sane.”