“(W)hat I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I'm feeling inspired. It's mainly a matter of forcing yourself to write.”

“The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.”

“I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself”

“I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning. ”

“I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.”

“I only write when I'm angry or sad, so because that's when I just have to write... If I'm having a good time and I'm happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I'm doing to go and write at the piano?”