“...do you like to write?""No. No writer really likes to write. I like to make love and drink wine. At my age I shouldn't lose time with anything else, but I can't stop writing. It's a disease.”

“I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.”

“That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.”

“I loved getting my M. B. A., and I really enjoyed being an accountant and financial analyst before I quit my day job twenty-five years ago to write full time. I just liked writing more…plus, I knew even then that as a full-time writer, I'd get plenty of chances to do business-type stuff, while as an accountant, I probably wouldn't get a lot of opportunities to write about dragons.”

“...publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write.”

“There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.”