Everything solid was first an idea.
If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.
Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.
First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it. . . . The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.
We're persecuted in the most civilized languages.
A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.
When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.
Music used to be a lot more about angst for me. Now it's the only form of meditation I do.
I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack.
That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
Grief brims itself and flows away in tears.