Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

God doesn’t dwell in the wooden, stony or earthen idols. His abode is in our feelings, our thoughts.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don’t know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.

Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn’t have to go so fast.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

‚I wish life was not so short,‘ he thought. ‚Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.‘

A letter does not blush.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

I don’t tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.

There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

I mean, we’ve built a lot of products that we think are good, and will help people share photos and share videos and write messages to each other. But it’s really all about how people are spreading Facebook around the world in all these different countries. And that’s what’s so amazing about the scale that it’s at today.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

A lot of the time when I write about the person that I love, I feel like I’m writing about New York.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday’s dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

I could speak three languages when I was six, and when I went to school, I only liked to read and sketch. At five, I could write and everything.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

You fail only if you stop writing.

I’m a writer, not a professional runner. It’s fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don’t hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

I might just write a novel next. I don’t know!

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man’s soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.