“...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.”

“The really inspired person is never inspired: he's always inspired: he doesn't go looking for inspiration and he doesn't get up in arms about artistic technique.”

“I'm looking for a writer who doesn't know where the sentence is leading her; a writer who starts with her obsessions and whose heart is bursting with love, a writer sly enough to give the slip to her secret police, the ones who know her so well, the ones with the power to accuse and condemn in the blink of an eye. It's all right that she doesn't know what she's thinking until she writes it, as if the words already exist somewhere and draw her to them. She may not know how she got there, but she knows when she's arrived.”

“The immoral woman in Luke 7 has the faith to anticipate Christ's forgiveness. She can act in love with no words to justify.”

“I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.”

“Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.”