So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.

In the country of the story the writer is king.

Dacchè mi ricordo, per me la scrittura è sempre stata un fatto privato. Un libro è una rassicurante pila di fogli di carta giallacoperti di parole scritte a macchina, una nazione conosciuta e ospitale in cui mi sento a casa, in grado di trovare un paragrafo o una riga senza difficoltà, di riconoscere al primo sguardo la giusta collocazione di una pagina.

Name?" the desk clerk said to me politely, her pencil poised."Name," I said vaguely. I remembered, and told her."Age?" she asked. "Sex? Occupation?""Writer," I said."Housewife," she said."Writer," I said."I'll just put down housewife," she said.

Dad and I did not care at all for your story in The New Yorker … [I]t does seem, dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people think about these days. Why don't you write something to cheer people up?