In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.

Writing is like sausage making in my view; you'll all be happier in the end if you just eat the final product without knowing what's gone into it.

But if what interests you are stories of the fantastic, I must warn you that this kind of story demands more art and judgment than is ordinarily imagined.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

A place that proves if you get enough talented people in a room, one or two are bound to offer some helpful advice. Kind if like monkeys with typewriters.

I’ve always loved the night, when everyone else is asleep and the world is all mine. It’s quiet and dark—the perfect time for creativity.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.

I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.

If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. Writing is a much more complicated activity that that.

When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing.

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)