No Use Fanning Up Hot Coals When

You Write By Sitting Down And Writing. There's No Particular Time Or Place—you Suit Yourself, Your Nature. How One Works, Assuming He's Disciplined, Doesn't Matter.

Somewhere I Put It This Way: First Drafts Are For Learning What One’s Fiction Wants Him To Say. Revision Works With That Knowledge To Enlarge And Enhance An Idea, To Reform It. Revision Is One Of The Exquisite Pleasures Of Writing.

A Man Is An Island In The Only Sense That Matters, Not An Easy Way To Be. We Live In Mystery, A Cosmos Of Separate Lonely Bodies, Men, Insects, Stars. It Is All Loneliness And Men Know It Best.

I Write A Book At Least Three Times-once To Understand It, The Second Time To Improve The Prose, And A Third To Compel It To Say What It Still Must Say.

First Drafts Are For Learning What Your Story Is About.