Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

The critic leaves at curtain fall
To find, in starting to review it,
He scarcely saw the play at all
For starting to review it.

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.

I like writing, but I write for self-improvement more than I do for money.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.