I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Lena Waithe won an Emmy for writing while starring on the Netflix show ‚Master of None,‘ but it might be more accurate to call her a Master of Everything.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

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

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

I’m sticking to the script, I’m putting that organic feeling back in the game.

The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I believe in being an innovator.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

This is not a bad life.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

I think it does Discworld good if I don’t write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

‚Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

I affirm to you the tremendous potential you have, not beyond anything you could ever imagine.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.

I could have been a cult writer if I’d kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I could write a realistic book.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

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

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

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

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

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

You have to give others the opportunity to love who you love. If they don’t accept it, it’s their loss.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!