You don't really know a woman until she writes you a letter.
A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.
A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.
What marks a writer is this: until she - or he, of course - writes down whatever happened, turns it into a story, it hasn't really happened, it hasn't shape, form, reality.
There are those of us who are always about to live. We are waiting until things change, until there is more time, until we are less tired, until we get a promotion, until we settle down / until, until, until. It always seems as if there is some major event that must occur in our lives before we begin living.
Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky.
I'm turning into one of those people who writes to the actors on 'Coronation Street' - a really obsessive fan.
Well, as anyone who actually writes knows, if you sit down and are prepared, then the ideas come. There's a lot of different ways people explain that, but, you know, I find that if I sit down and I prepare myself, generally things get done.
I just think that there are those people that their resolve is strengthened by what it is that's keeping them down, and there are some people that will buckle under it. You never know which one is which until you get into the eighth or ninth round of the fight.
In terms of the way people see me, it breaks down into two very clear and distinct groups: those who think they know me from reading the papers and those who really know me by reading my books.
So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song.
Strong and healthy, who thinks of sickness until it strikes like lightning? Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?
When I was a kid, we used to play this thing called 'the writing game' with our father. My brother and I would play it - where first person writes a sentence, and the second person writes a sentence, and the third person writes a sentence, and so on until you get bored and have to go to bed.
If you are an enemy to your own mind, other people have to become enemies too, sooner or later. Until you understand, until you can love the thoughts that appear in your mind, then you can love the rest of us. You work with the projector -the mind - not the projected world. I can't really love you until I question the mind that thinks it sees you outside itself . . .
Life is just a series of peaks and troughs. And you don't know whether you're in a trough until you're climbing out, or on a peak until you're coming down. And that's it you know, you never know what's round the corner. But it's all good. "If you want the rainbow, you've gotta put up with the rain." Do you know which "philosopher" said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she's just a big pair of tits.
No matter how deep a study you make. What you really have to rely on is your own intuition and when it comes down to it, you really don't know what's going to happen until you do it.