I’ve been writing my entire life, and I’ll always write.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter’s school fees.

I would get out of school and go straight to my computer to create beats.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery – always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile.

Once I get on a puzzle, I can’t get off.

I really love training and being in good shape, and it’s so much a part of my life now, so it never really feels like work to me.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

On ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ I wouldn’t care what I was playing – I would play a corpse, ‚cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

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

Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

I am a very emotional guy. What I love, I do with all I have.

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

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

I don’t care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don’t have an intuitive feeling for equations.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.

I’ve always believed that success for anyone is all about drive, dedication, and desire, but for me, it’s also been about confidence and faith.

What happens if you stick at something long enough, and study it for so long, you have a different kind of intelligence. It’s not an intellectual thing. It’s almost like an animal intelligence. I call it our form of instinct, almost how a lion knows exactly where its prey is.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in.

Starting your own business isn’t just a job – it’s a way of life.

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

‚The New Yorker‘ was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I’d more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions – not much.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

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

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer… I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

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.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

I always felt that if I was going to do a movie, I wanted it to be authentic.

I don’t believe you could be a 39-year-old quarterback in the NFL and eat cheeseburgers every day. I want to be able to do what I love to do for a long time.

Naturally, my stories are about women – I’m a woman. I don’t know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I’m not always sure what is meant by ‚feminist.‘ In the beginning, I used to say, ‚Well, of course I’m a feminist.‘ But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I’m not.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Die to everything of yesterday so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion.

If you can talk, you can write.

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

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.