Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain climbing, treadmill and childbirth... But amusing Never.

All that I really have to recount are observations and notes made during the course of my life as a painter. I ask those who will have the patience to read these notes the indulgence usually granted to the writings of painters

We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire

She realized as a girl of eight that if she sat down and wrote her stories, she could escape the parts of life she didn't like, embroider the parts she did and thus control the life she had

Inspiration always arrives unannounced

I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning

Perhaps what I do not manage to operate rapidly enough is the passage between the outside and the inside

Write on my gravestone Infidel, Traitor, infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.