“You have made some notes, read some writing books, and done some research. Mostly what you've done is talk about writing a book. An idea for a book is not a book; it is a waste of time. There is no singular thing that makes someone a writer, but there is one thing that makes someone a joke--talking about writing a book without doing any work.”

“People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe.”

“Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and put them in the book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe things using words so that people could read them and make a picture in their own head.”

“Your life is a book. Some have written half-way, some, three-quarter way. You have the opportunity to write and rewrite the book of your life. Make sure you write a masterpiece.”

“Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.”

“It is a wholly deplorable state of affairs when specialists in any discipline talk only to each other, and accordingly I have sought to write a book which will communicate some of the fruits of research in a manner which will make them accessible to all.”