I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes immediately to mi….

It's very strange writing science fiction in a world that moves as fast as ours does..

Opinionated writing is always the most difficult... simply because it involves retaining in the cold morning-after crystal of the printed word the bu….

I am writing about people who are alive in the city of New York during mid-20th-century America. And these people are like a character in a play or t….

One of the things I always underscore when I teach criticism is that young critics, or would be critics, frequently have this illusion that if they w….

I fantasised about F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' - I loved it, and then I read everything J. D. Salinger had to offer. Then I was turned o….

Writing is the basis of all, because creating something that didn't even exist before is like taking an empty canvass. It is a wonderful thing to mak….

The place I write best is at the Angell Hall computer center on the University of Michigan campus, where I went to school. I still go over there and ….

I notice inspiration when it comes by. I don't sit down at my desk and try to write..

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in th….

I can only work between the hours of 8:30 and 4:30, because that's when the kids are at school. So I get to do all my work and have all of my fun in ….

I write as the birds sing, because I must, and usually from the same source of inspiration..

You're writing for some version of yourself. You're writing the kinds of things that you like to read or wanted to read at a certain point. So, prima….

Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of….

I don't find that writing about parts of my life had much effect except in some cases to improve my memory. To get into parts of the past I want to r….

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it..

When you write you have to reside in the unknown for as long as possible..

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed..

I love to tell stories. I love to tell stories the way I tell them, not the way anybody else tells them. I am all the time writing a novel..

In writing and speaking, three is more satisfying than any other number..

I spend 60 hours a week on my business but I don't work for a minute. Work is hard. But what I do - writing, speaking, researching, learning, and sha….