“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.”

“...but it won't last," "Yes," he replied. "Yes it will. You're all I see, hear, or need in all the world.”

“If inspiration won't find you, then you go find inspiration.”

“No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain.”

“What do you do when you're drowning but the only way to be free is to hold on to the one thing in all the world you're afraid won't be able to keep both os you afloat?”