“I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell. ”

“In the morning I'm like a snake in the spring: I need to lie out on a warm rock and let the sun sink into me before I can start wiggling around and get on with the day.”

“When I'm writing I don't dream much; it's like the dreaming gets used in the writing.”

“...there were certain chapters when I stopped writing, saw the domestic situation I was in and thought, "I don't want to face this world, let's get back to the hellish one I'm imagining.”

“Most of the time I feel stupid, insensitive, mediocre, talentless and vulnerable—like I'm about to cry any second—and wrong. I've found that when that happens, it usually means I'm writing pretty well, pretty deeply, pretty rawly.”

“I'm going to write a novel and get it published. I'm going to do it because writing a novel is worthwhile and because I have the talent to do it.I'm going to do it because I have something important to say to the world.I refuse to let anything get in my way.”