A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

A divorce is like an amputation; you survive, but there's less of you.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

. . . time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee. . . . I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

Of course, Pupkin would never have thought of considering himself on an intellectual par with Mallory Tompkins. That would have been ridiculous. Mallory Tompki…

The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that …

When I'm doing the first draft, I have a so-much-a-day schedule. But when I start putting it on the computer I can get carried away, and I try to go as far as …