Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.

The less conscious one is of being a writer, the better the writing.

Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.

As Thoreau famously sead, it doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.

Writing should ... be as spontaneous and urgent as a letter to a lover, or a message to a friend who has just lost a parent ... and writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger