Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

It's easy to say I love you, but much harder to show it. Be bold. Be in love—and show it. Love is like writing—show, don’t tell.

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

I see things, that's all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.

Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.

Half of what I write is garbage, but if I don’t get it down on paper it decomposes in my head.
 This work is composed entirely of compost.

M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises...

Stories do not change the world. I’ve learned that. But perhaps in some secret, subtle way.... I mean it’s not the world I want to change.

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.

I’ll bet if I write a sentence and mention the word “edit,” people will slow down and scour my words for errors. Did it wrok?


Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

The more the words of others impressed him with their factual content, the more he felt he must wait for his own facts before being tempted into words.