“When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.”

“When someone you love dies, you get a big bowl of sadness put down in front of you, steaming hot. You can start eating now, or you can let it cool and eat it bit by bit later one. Either way, you end up eating the whole thing. There's really no way around it.”

“Penulis sama dengan orang-orang lain, kecuali untuk satu perbedaan kecil yang penting. Orang lain berpikir dan merasa setiap hari, tetapi mereka tidak melakukan apa-apa dengan itu. Sebaliknya, penulis bereaksi.”

“The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.”

“Any fool can write a book and most of them are doing it; but it takes brains to build a house.”

“We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not posses.”

“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.”