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.

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!

Little children are all writers.

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

I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.

As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.

Music is my enchanter, the seducer of my emotions, the fire and ice that moves me.

The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.

World change comes from within.

It's not about thinking outside of the box. It's about realizing there is no box.

I'm able to leave Don Draper at work. I'm quite dissimilar from him in real life

I don’t have too many books, I have too little shelving.

You know, I think Marco Rubio would be a spectacular candidate for vice president. I think he would energize the country. I think he has a great story. He's bright. He's articulate.

I guess, I ended up finding music to pour my curiosity into. It was my creative outlet and therapy at the same time.

Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not; I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.