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When you are writing, you must treat it as the most important thing in the world, even when you know it is not. This helps you take the job seriously ...more

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If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.

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The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, comp...more

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If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one pers...more

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Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and writ...more

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A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks ...more

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Sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and write to that one.

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Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

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The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not...more

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Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

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Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the clois...more

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The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

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The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light...more

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As with many people, Charles, who could not talk, wrote with fullness. He set down his loneliness and his perplexities, and he put on paper many thing...more

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I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an' stuff like that, too; not just word writin'. My ol' man'll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one s...more