It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one’s children will become than for the children one’s ‚mature‘ critics often are.

Siren voices tell me, ‚You don’t have to keep going on.‘ And then you think, ‚I’m a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?‘ I don’t know. I like being a writer.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

Many people tell me that they don ‚t know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That’s good.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do – and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time.

The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.

It’s true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose.

Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what’s going to happen in my life.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

All of my writing is God-given.

The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

My mother insisted that her children read.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced in television.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you’re all trying to live vicariously through them. And you’re jealous of the kid that’s naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

I’d like to think that I’m a calm and sweet person. I tend to be very playful at home with my children, but in life… we have to fight our battles – our work battles, our political battles, our personal battles – and we’re focused.

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.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

My biggest hobby is hanging out with my family and kids.

I go to sleep thinking about my kids being spoiled and I wake up thinking about it.

Part of me feels you can’t say you were truly in love if it didn’t last. If I end up getting married and having kids, that’s when I’ll know it’s real – because it lasted.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

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

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

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

I’ve still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, ‚You know, that’s the truth. I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t a six-foot black girl, but that’s the truth.‘

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

If you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.