Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like f — Writing

"You dont really understand your thoughts until you express them in words."

"Heres a statement made recently by a man who feels that women writers are quite different from men writers: “I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think it is unequal to me.” He talked about something called “feminine tosh”. He didnt mean it in an unkind way, he added. He said this is because of womens “sentimentality, their narrow view of the world . . . And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing, too”."

"The personal essay is vulnerable. It cannot stand upon its footnotes."

"The reason I got into magic was that it seemed to be what was lying at the end of the path of writing. If I wanted to continue on that path, I was going to have to get into that territory because I had followed writing as far as I thought I could without taking a step over the edges of rationality. The path led out of rational confines. When you start thinking about art and creativity, rationality is not big enough to contain it all."

"Writing is like training to be an athlete. There is a lot of training and work that nobody sees in order to compete. The writer needs to write every day, just as the athlete needs to train. Much of the writing will never be used, but it is essential to do it. I always tell my young students to write at least one good page a day. At the end of the year they will have at least 360 good pages. That is a book."

"A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content. A certain amount of encouragement is necessary."