She's a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind.

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.

I write - and read - for the sake of the story... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.

If a drought strikes them, animals perish--man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish--man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish--man writes the Constitution of the United States.

You don't build for the way people live, but for the way they should live. I don't write about people as they are, but as they could be and should be.

It is a sin to write this.

If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a valid book.

By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.