When people say, 'you're so young to be a writer,' I always reply, 'I started young because I've got a lot to write.
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.
You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his.
By living, thinking, even dreaming the story in one continuous process, ideas came faster and faster. Sometimes the typewriter keys would fly so fast that I wondered if my fingers could keep up with t...
I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing
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]
Start having more confidence in yourself, and others will do the same.
You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.
People should know better than to be an ass in front of writers. We immortalize things. Lots of things. And we take liberties with character descriptions.
A writer needs to ingest love to be passionate. Passion is a metabolite of love, and good writing is an active metabolite of passion.
I have to declare in all candor that no one interested in being published in our time can afford to be so naive as to believe that a book will make it merely because it's good.
The pen is mightier than the sword as long as it doesn't run out of ink.
It's all mine, it's all sacred.
A goal is a written plan.Write your dreams and visions.
My early attempts writing plays, which are very poetic, did not use the language that I work in now. I didn't recognize the poetry in everyday language of black America. I thought I had to change it t...
You can have practically anything you want in this world, if you have great credit.
Every writer must acknowledge and be able to handle the unalterable fact that he has, in effect, given himself a life sentence in solitary confinement.
When I write, I write obsessively. I try to pace myself, but some fires are too hot to put out.
Write what you love. Passion is the key to a good story.
You're never as good a writer as you think you are, and you're never as bad. Just keep reading and writing, writing, writing.