“Say a prayer to whatever God you believe in or none, and find the strength within you to keep going, and get back on the road after every fall and write, then write some more. You’re a writer, if you write.”

“If you write about a place, you need to be right about the place!”

“I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.”

“Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.”

“As a devout Baptist, she believed it was a sin to pray for anything for yourself. You ought to pray only for strength to bear whatever the Lord saw fit to send you, she thought. I was never able to follow this advice, for although I would often feel a sense of uneasiness over the tone of my prayers, I was the kind of person who prayed frantically-"Please, God, please, please, PLEASE let Ross MacVey like me better than Mavis.”

“When I say "work" I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”

“When you’re a writer, the cure for whatever ails you is always writing.”