A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life..

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity..

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are..

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness..

What writers do is they tell their own story constantly through other people's stories. They imagine other people, and those other people are carryin….

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it..

We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must ma….

The human heart is a dark forest..

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing..

Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing..

You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to ….

When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse….

There are very few professions in which people just sit down and think hard for five or six hours a day all by themselves. Of course it's why you wan….

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them..

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order..

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow..

But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live with, but it's a goad and does keep you….

Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community..

One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess, but one could live in it..

When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falli….

In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It deman….