“The Sabbath, I said, is not only an idea. It is also something you keep. With other people. You can’t just extract lessons from it.”

“Your ego identity, the attachment to the bogus idea you have of yourself prevents you from expressing your authentic talent and who you truly are. This attachment makes you feel afraid of what other people may think of you, of how they will react. They may judge, tease or even leave you. Yet the obstacle is not other people. It is your idea of them, which comes from the bogus idea you have of yourself. Letting go of this idea is the only way for expressing your authentic talent. In this way you will become who you truly are, and other people will also do the same.”

“But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.”

“I just can’t comprehend, that you, Borge, of all people, couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”

“Instead of getting at the other side with something just as bad as they did to you - or something worse - you do something good. Or at least you keep yourself from doing something bad”