“I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books.”
“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”
“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.”
“Humility is an essential quality in writers who want to write well.”
“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
“There are all kinds of writers. The best writers write children's books.”