Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.

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.

Am I still married to a cat? (Adrian)

Movies are like magic tricks.

You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard.

I’ll love you with all my heart, in every life, through every death. I will not be bound by anything but my love for you.

Prepare for the new; expect the new; embrace the new. Otherwise, you'll just repeat what's old.

In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming.

Justice is the well water of the city of Novgorod, black and sweet.

In our fluctuations of feelings, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by.

I think the biggest thing that people fear when it comes to art becoming a business is those authentic, pure aspirations of art being compromised.

When Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are alike, what he meant was that there are no happy families.