There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue.
I don't smoke because I like to do so, but because it makes me pay cigarette taxes, which helps build roads and water supplies.
You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop-H2O. The reader will get it.
Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk-away from any open flames-to remind yourself that if you don't write daily, you will get rusty.
There's a ton of truth in Flannery O'Connor's notion that "Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. "
I have to deal with seven ex-stray dogs, and one ex-stray cat. One dog is nearing nineteen years old. Before I go to teach, he likes for me to tell him bedtime stories.
Don't try to outguess what's going on in publishing, and write what you want to write.
I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed.
People tend to fear the ghosts in their own family. You feel these family curses and think, 'If it happened to my father, it could happen to me. '
Ninety-eight percent of what goes on in people's heads is none of their smucking business.
We have no salaries. When one says he is from a good Catholic family and says he wants to help us, why should we refuse his offer?