No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

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.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

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

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

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

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.

You can stroke people with words.

There’s nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, ‚Well, okay, I’m going to do something of high artistic worth.‘

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

Ain’t nothing like a good cry.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

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.

When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

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

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

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

If I ever felt like I was getting lost in the hurricane that was storming around Nirvana, I’d just go back to Virginia.

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

I don’t try and be dark, but there are obviously darker emotions that I want to capture sometimes.

When I don’t feel free and can’t do what I want I just react. I go against it.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

The Occupy movement is – it was a big surprise.

All emotion is involuntary when genuine.

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.