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.

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

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.

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.

Remember that self-doubt is as self-centered as self-inflation. Your obligation is to reach as deeply as you can and offer your unique and authentic gifts as bravely and beautifully as you're able.

Is today a good day to die?Is today the day?And if not today–when?

I have been trained to throw many, many pitches.

Now little kids come to my front door and give me cookies. You see that smile on their face, they're looking at me the same way I used to look at Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart, and that's pretty cool.

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off.

To talk only about national security, national defense, means to be selfish, ambitious. It is discrimination, isolation. "It is just me. What do I care about others?"

Where words cease, there music begins.

I don't know whether I will drink again in my life but I didn't drink yesterday, I am not drinking today and I'll try not to drink again tomorrow.

With my singing I can make, a refuge for my spirit's sake; a house of shining words, to be my fragile immortality.

ALL KNOWLEDGE is possible for anyone - and the Cosmos gives it to him who asks, but all information is impossible.