“Only something extremely dire and disabling will ever stop a real writer from writing. Retirement is never an option.”

“The first thing you have to learn when you go into the arts is to learn to cope with rejection. If you can’t, you’re dead”

“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.”

“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”

“I am not retiring. Writers don't retire. Writers never stop writing.”

“Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn't a writer anymore. I'm sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living.”

“To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development.”