“I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it’s immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it.”

Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.

I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we’re fools.

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it.

Work is the only answer. I have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn’t work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

We are the witnesses to the miracle. We are put here by creation, by God….We’re here to be the audience to the magnificent. It is our job to celebrate.

Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.

Treasure this day and Treasure yourself, truly, neither will ever happen again.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

Television is very dangerous. Because it repeats and repeats and repeats our disasters, instead of our triumphs.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

All education is self-discovery.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe.

Three rules: I do not eat too much; I do not worry too much; and, if I do my best, I believe that what happens, happens for the best.

I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.

It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us.

To believe in love, to be ready to give up anything for it, to be willing to risk your life for it, is the ultimate tragedy.

I believe in the kindness of strangers. And when I’m at war with myself I ride, I just ride.