If grammar is the skeleton of expression and usage the flesh and blood, then style is the personality.

You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more."("The Castle")

Murphy is a writer's best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he'll steal the silver.

Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.

Writer's block isn't always a problem. It can be a process of writing that helps us write better.

A blank page is no empty space. It is brimming with potential... It is a masterpiece in waiting -- yours.

I’ve come to the end of another book alive. At times like this I’m always at a loss for words.

I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.

The paradox of writing is that you’re trying to use words to express what words can’t express.

When will someone write from the point of view of a joke, that is to say theway God sees events from above?

Writing is more than a craft; it is a way of life. Everything you see or do becomes part of what you write.

You must write as if Dostoyevsky himself will be reading your novel, and Shakespeare will be acting it out.

Any thing is interesting if you can communicate it. There are no unimportant subjects for the enlivened mind.

In fact, one could argue that the skill of the fiction writer boils down to the ability to exploit intensity.

Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.