Writing

"Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters."

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you."

"let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences"

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

"you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."

"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

"If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn."

"The first draft of anything is shit."

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."

"Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent."

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

"After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world."

"The scariest moment is always just before you start."

"There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story."

"Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced."