The covers of this book are too far apart.
What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree, with flexible parts on which are imprinted lot's of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you are inside the mind of another person. Maybe somebody dead for a thousand years. Across the millennia an author is speaking clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions. Binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.
[Playwright] Tom Stoppard once said the reason he writes is because every once in a while you put a few words together in the right order and you're able to give the world a nudge. And sometimes I'm able to do that.
The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
Unfortunately, when it comes to producing a noteworthy product, polishing is everything. Just ask professional writers about their craft. They’ll eagerly tell you, “Writing is rewriting.” And if they’re smart, they’re rewriting based on the reaction of members of their target audience.
I have read your book and much like it.
To hold a pen is to be at war.