I tend to write about people. I look at things from the bottom up and from the perspective of outsiders. A part of me just identifies with them. It's….

When you write for very young children what they want is something familiar and safe and stereotyped..

I remember wanting to write a book with someone, the someone being Kate [DiCamillo], and we decided to write about two friends. We had no idea how to….

Editors, for the most part, don't care ''what'' you've done, or how astounding the physical event may have been. You need to write well. Many others ….

I like making records right now 'cause I can express myself that way in a very immediate, physical sense. You can always write a book, but you can't ….

My work holds up the mirror to hypocrisy, which puts me in a tradition of American writing that reaches back to Nathaniel Hawthorne..

My friends all regarded me as a man of unsound mind because I held the view that my wife was with me in spirit always. I have lived with her spirit g….

Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen..

There's just something "off" about equating the act of spending three years writing a book with the act of someone exploiting themselves by drunkenly….

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter..

I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive..

When we think we have something to say we are usually wrong. We are fooling ourselves. Trip into discovery. Don't write what you know, discover somet….

Given the devaluation of literature and of the study of foreign languages per se in the United States, as well as the preponderance of theory over te….

To me a good book is like a quiet friend—a friend who’s happy to share thoughts and feelings with you, who’s always there when you need them. Best of….

I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books..

My characters, I find them as I'm writing. It's quite incredible how fully realized they are in my mind, how many details I know about each of them..

Learning patience takes a lot of patience!.

Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard..

I never write with any kind of message, and I don't think that this book, 'Goodbye, Stranger' has a message in the capital M form of the word but I d….

Writing can give full meaning to characters and avoid pure stereotype..

Writing the short story is essentially an act of grace. It's not a matter of will so much as trust. I try to let the story do some of the work for me….