When I write, I can shake off all my cares.

If you’re going to wake up early all the time, and you’re working hard, and you’re working out, sometimes you’re going to get tired. It’s OK. It’s acceptable – somewhat. We’re all human, unfortunately.

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. It means to think of something over and over.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

I write for myself things that I’ve gone through.

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

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

Never regret what you don’t write.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

I’m happy to be a writer – of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

And one more thing.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you’re heartbroken, but tomorrow you’ll be in love again.

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

As I read more and more – and it was not all verse, by any means – my love for the real life of words increased until I knew that I must live with them and in them, always. I knew, in fact, that I must be a writer of words, and nothing else.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

I think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.

I always teach myself calm and visualization stuff.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

I’m interested in women’s health because I’m a woman. I’d be a darn fool not to be on my own side.

My advice is this. For Christ’s sake, don’t write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books.

The main problem with writing in verse is, if your fourth line doesn’t come out right, you’ve got to throw four lines away and figure out a whole new way to attack the problem. So the mortality rate is terrific.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

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.

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever – I rap about it.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

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

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

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

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

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.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

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

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

Protect your enthusiasm from the negativity of others.

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

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

‚Nation‘ was one that I’d have killed myself if I hadn’t written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.

You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‚The A-Team‘ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can’t. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

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.