“You're never confident. You go in fear and trembling every day. It would be awfully nice to think that you know how to write a novel. But what you know is the novel you just wrote. You don't have the slightest notion how to write the one you're going to do next.”

“You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.”

“Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.”

“Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.”

“Don't beat yourself up for not knowing the answers. You don't always have to know who you are. You don't have to have the big picture, or know where you're heading. Sometimes, it's enough just to know what you're going to do next.”

“Write me what you're wearing! Is it warm? Write me how you lie! Do you lie there softly? Write me how you look! Is it still the same? Write me what you're missing! Is it my arm? Write me how you are! Have you been spared? Write me what they're doing! Do you have enough courage? Write me what you're doing! Is it good? Write me, who are you thinking of? Is it me? Freely, I've given you only my questions. And I hear the answers, how they fall. When you're tired, I can't carry it for you. If you're hungry, I have nothing for you to eat. And so now I leave the world No longer there, as if I've forgotten you.”