Quotes on I Can

As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence.

Words are not truth. Truth is like the moon, and words are like my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon. Do you need my finger to see the moon?

Let those who will write the nation's laws, if I can write its textbooks.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

I am not a painter, nor an artist. Therefore I can see straight, and that may be my undoing.

Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour.

It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence - no first draft. I can't write five words but that I change seven.

When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.

I write fiction because it's a way of making statements I can disown.

I think the only person a writer has an obligation to is himself. If what I write doesn't fulfill something in me, if I don't honestly feel it's the best I can do, then I'm miserable.

Because I can't seem to escape it. It's a way for me to address and counter my questions about what it means to be human, or, in my case a Dominican human who grew up in New Jersey.

I never write "metropolis" for seven cents when I can write "city" and get paid the same.

Tell them that as soon as I can walk I'm going to fly!

So in many ways for me, having lived through what I've lived through, and endured what I've endured, I've got more confidence that I can do the next bit - and there's something sustaining about that.

Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure _x000D_ _x000D_ Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word_x000D_ _x000D_ My choicest hours_x000D_ _x000D_ Are the hours I spend with You -_x000D_ _x000D_ O God, I can't live in this world_x000D_ _x000D_ Without remembering You

Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head nor tail out of it.

I can't expect loyalty from the army if I do not give it.

I don't have a lot of "I can't" inside me.

Today I will stop trying to control my relationships. I will participate at a reasonable level and let the other person do the same. I can let go, knowing that the relationship will find its own life-or not-and that I don't have to do all the work, only my share.