“During my sixteen years as a teacher of writing, I removed many adverbs and adverbial phrases from students' writing. I decided long ago that a writer who needlessly modifies words is either a nervous writer who does not believe in the worth of what they are writing or a vain writer who wants to be seen as discriminating and sensitive to nuances or meaning.”

“Soon after I left university, I came up with another definition of a literary critic or would be critic: someoone who uses churlish towards the end of an article or review.”

“It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.”

“I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books.”

“I believe that a writer is a person who writes. An author is a person who has written.”

“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”

“That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.”