“Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer?”

“Better and happier those who, recognizing that everything is fictitious, write the novel before someone writes it for them and, like Machiavelli, don courtly garments to write in secret.”

“I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and i can write faster than anybody who can write better.”

“An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.”

“When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium; and consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind.”

“Writing is a mixed blessing. We, who are addicted, berate ourselves and feel guilty when we don't write and at the same time put it off and hunt for diversions. Why? Because the this that makes us the happiest is also tedious, hard and frustrating. Writing makes us crazy; not writing even crazier.”