“You don't write what you know you write to find out what you don't know”

“I don't write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know.”

“Don't Write What You Know; Write What You Care About -- Passionately!!”

“Write about what you don't know about what you know.”

“You will have a story in there. . . or a character, a place, a poem, a moment in time. When you find it, you will write it. Word after word after word after word.”

“I, myself, write to change my life, to make it come out the way I want it to. But other people write for other reasons: to see more closely what it is they are thinking about, what they may be afraid of. Sometimes writers write to solve a problem, to answer their own question. All these reasons are good reasons. And that is the most important thing I'll ever tell you. Maybe it is the most important thing you'll ever hear. Ever.”

“[the truth in regards to studying abroad] "you know what else is nice about being a foreigner? Whatever you do takes place in a capsule that need not be discovered and opened by someone back home. Nothing really counts--it was the life that falls in the forest. That's how I looked at it. I felt free to...oh, I don't know.”