The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the gods.

The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, reading your story, will catch fire, too?

Stand at the top of a cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.

I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of brushes like quail before gunshot.