“Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?”

“Debugging: what an odd word. As if "bugging" were the job of putting in bugs, and debugging the task of removing them. But no. The job of putting in bugs is called programming. A programmer writes some code and inevitably makes the mistakes that result in the malfunctions called bugs. Then, for some period of time, normally longer than the time it takes to design and write the code in the first place, the programmer tries to remove the mistakes.”

“You can get yourself pretty thoroughly lost, in time and space, if you don't know where you are or where you have just come from. How is this relevant to creative writing and writing programs? First of all, there is a certain amount of misinformation masquerading as assumed history -- as the story of creative writing in America.”

“Write me what you're wearing! Is it warm? Write me how you lie! Do you lie there softly? Write me how you look! Is it still the same? Write me what you're missing! Is it my arm? Write me how you are! Have you been spared? Write me what they're doing! Do you have enough courage? Write me what you're doing! Is it good? Write me, who are you thinking of? Is it me? Freely, I've given you only my questions. And I hear the answers, how they fall. When you're tired, I can't carry it for you. If you're hungry, I have nothing for you to eat. And so now I leave the world No longer there, as if I've forgotten you.”

“You write your first novel with the desperation of the damned. You're afraid that you'll never write anything else, ever again.”

“If you're not scared when you are writing you're not working hard enough. You'll be afraid but you have to keep going.”