An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

A word after a word after a word is power.

I don’t do research. I never have.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn’t actually doing any writing.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.

Older and wiser voices can help you find the right path, if you are only willing to listen.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.

I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

Don’t try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie. Study computers instead.

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.

I wanted to write.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

I’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

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 promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of men for the distain of one, go ahead, get married.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you.

I’ve been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don’t need to write a book for adults.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

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.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

I’m from the generation that had the boys‘ door and the girls‘ door when you went to school, and you got in big trouble if you went in the wrong one.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

I don’t think about who the audience is for my books.

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‚we.‘

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics and some of the editorial pages, I am an ardent believer in the free market.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

I was of the generation where most of the Disney princesses and female characters were not girls that I admired. They just weren’t characters I looked up to and identified with.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn’t have to write for my living.

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

Becoming a writer is not a ‚career decision‘ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.