If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average

Writing is thinking on paper.

Writing is thinking on paper.

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but read more

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they read more

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all read more

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean

I would be willing to bet that if one day a woman walked barefoot to the moon and back and read more

I would be willing to bet that if one day a woman walked barefoot to the moon and back and a man cleaned out his desk, when the two of them sat down to dinner that night he would say, ‘Boy was that desk a mess.’

I don't like to write, but I love to have written

I don't like to write, but I love to have written