“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”

“Those who write are writers. Those who wait are waiters.”

“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”

“Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the writer . . . and on the reader.”

“I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books.”

“I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour — write, write, write.”