"I write for about three hours in the morning—from about 9:30 till 12:30—and I do another hour’s work between 6 and 7 in the evening."
"I’m not a words-per-day kind of guy. I always felt that if you have an artificial number, it probably means that you don’t want to be writing, anyway."
"For most of my life, the ritual was to get to work at seven or eight in the morning and work for five or six hours, until I had 1,000 words I was proud of."
“I’ve stayed with it for over 50 years and it’s paid off.”
“What do I need in order to release my imagination?”
“You have permission to not write, but you don’t have permission to do anything else.”
"Some days I write just a couple hundred words, but if it’s crucial I feel pleased about it."
"I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind."
You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true.
"My routine doesn’t vary much from day to day. The day always starts with walking."
"I have two desks. One has a writing slope and the other has a computer on it. The computer dates from 1996. It’s not connected to the Internet."
"There are no rules to writing. Many people swear that there are, and that if you don’t follow them, you won’t be successful—but I call bullshit."
