“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous.In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to writereally, really shitty first drafts.”

“I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.”

“All good writers write [terrible first drafts.] This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. . . I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

“Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.”

“As with most things, my approach to writing has been entirely ass-backwards. I first had to become everything but a writer -- exhaust all possibilities. I had to come to it on my knees. Only when there was truly nothing left, was I able to become a writer.”

“I write because I am a writer, not because I want to get anything out of it.”