“That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? ”

“There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot."Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.""Why can't we all move forward together?""Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.""Who leads?""The men who must...driven men, compelled men.""Freak men.""You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.""Thank you very much.""My pleasure, sir.""You've saved the day.""Always a lovely day somewhere, sir," the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed.”

“The truth is, we don't have an easy language for emotional life. That's why we have writers.”

“Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.”

“Creativity is the basis of self-expression. Why are some people supposedly more creative than others, and why can’t others open themselves up enough to be able to express who they are? Creation is the birth of something, and something cannot come from nothing. When someone creates something: a painting, a poem, a photograph, the creativity comes from an idea, from a feeling, from emotion, or from a combination of ideas, feelings and emotions that are somehow ‘reborn’ from all our experiences and perspectives. Creativity is the desire to express ourselves. To formulate these expressions, we have to draw from our reservoir of experience, dreams, desires and experimentation and mix together what was, what is, and what could be… I don’t think you can learn it, it is rather something that evolves. Your perception of everything in your life fills up this reservoir.”

“What are we after when we open one of those books? What is it that makes a classic a classic? ... in old-fashioned terms, the answer is that it wll elevate your spirit. And that's why I can't take much stock in the idea of going through a list of books or 'covering' a fixed number of selections, or anyway striving for the blessed state of having read this, or the other. Having read a book means nothing. Reading a book may be the most tremendous experience of your life; having read it is an item in your memory, part of your receding past... Why we have that odd faith in the magic of having read a book, I don't know. We don't apply the same principle elsewhere: We don't believe in having heard Mendelssohn's violin concerto...I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own.”