I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, to make it visible and real in a tangible way, in the way other people's seemed real -- the lives I ...
I wish I had eyes that changed colors from blue to gray, and then after I cried, to all the colors of the rainbow, because then I’d just sit in front of the mirror writing poems that alternated between extremely sad poems, to poems about light refr...
I’ve found newspapers only useful as kindling material for campfires. It’s been said that newspaper articles are written at a fifth grade reading level. If so, I can’t figure out why journalists would write something that the average high schoo...
Our house is quiet, small and plain, and yet its rooms run far and wide. A hundred pencils, swift as rain, writing on sheets of beaten gold would not be quick enough to hold the strange adventures shadows hide...
Today I ate my manuscript with the very spoon I used to write it with. My book was called “Chicken Noodle Soup for the Stomach.” I wrote it with alphabet soup, and then edited it with a can of chicken noodle soup.
True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
This great Mughal Emperor [Akbar] was illiterate; he could neither read nor write. However, that had not stopped Akbar from cultivating the acquaintance of the most learned and cultured poets, authors, musicians, and architects of the time - relying ...
I want to drown in all the ink used to write positive things about my clone and how great he is.
Sometimes writing is easy. Other times it’s as hard as trying to eat a whole whale, after the whale has just eaten you.
The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government. (A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)
If I could only teach you one thing about the world, it would be to Appreciate and be as present as possible in every moment. Take everything in and try and learn from it. No matter how tangled things get, there is always a lesson to be learned in th...
The reason why women think men should spend a lot of money on an engagement ring is because women are the ones who get to clean up all the poop (stains and toilet bowl swirls included) that is provided by every family member living in the house until...
A woman being able to make a man genuinely laugh leaves a much better impression on him than a woman who wants them to feel like she is nothing more than a sex object… believe me, they tend to not be as picky as you might think when it comes to tha...
Congress should make it so that all sex scenes in all films should be provided with a screaming baby sound track. That should help take away all the fun and may show a major decrease in unwanted pregnancies without having to provide birth control to ...
No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist.
I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language. I want all people to be Indians first, Indian las...
Perfection should generally be avoided in a character. Real people, such as your readers, aren’t flawless and chances are they are not going to be able to fully identify with a character who is.
The fact is, I’m being attacked by extraterrestrials. They’re invisible, and now, even as I write this, my anus is bleeding. Science turns into sexual harassment when the aliens probe my ass with dildos, cucumbers, and Barney Frank’s tiny shoes...
To my mind, the most important thing in any form of fiction is the human element, but only if it takes us beyond the everyday, into situations that examine the complexities that may fascinate or puzzle us. To dwell on the mundane as some kind of a wr...
If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens. Such a body has no place to rest. . . . Let another continue this poem.
On the day my daughter was born, I started writing a book for her. The plan was that, over the course of her life, I'd fill it with advice on how to be a strong woman. But along the way, I got caught up in the stories of Amelia Earhart, Sally Ride, a...
