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I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don't feel that way about ...more

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I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this., New York Times, April 19, 1992...more

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You are either born a writer or you are not.

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My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time.

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I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

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Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of your head driving you nuts, you may not do anything. ...more

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I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing

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He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain a...more

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When you're a kid you have these notions about how things are going to be.... You get a little older and you pull back on some of that. I think you wi...more

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No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that on...more

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All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.

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Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimp...more

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To make the world. To make it again and again. To make it in the very maelstrom of its undoing.