Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.

There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!

There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.

Little children are all writers.

I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.

Turn your adversity into building blocks for the palace of your dreams.

If he is a God of sound judgment, that sound mind must be revealed in people who identify themselves with him on daily basis

I want to tell him I love him

A lie carries a weight that is exponentially higher than the truth. It’s weight will retard growth directly in proportion to the area lied.

I can't get too offended when somebody parodies me.

Indeed, man only exists insofar as he expresses himself. Music does it in musical ideas.

Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.

Russia has got to be the team to beat, in my opinion. When they are playing together as a team, they are tough to beat.

While growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world. I had kind of a rough childhood, so I created my own reality.

Why are my arms so weak? It's like I did that push-up last year for nothing!