You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.

It feels a little scary for most writers because when you're writing, you're completely in charge – you can say this book is all mine, it's my world. Whether giving over some of that has any monetary value or not, we'll see.

I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of brushes like quail before gunshot.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Allen Ginsberg instructs: "First thought, best thought." Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse.

Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, "'First thought best thought' is not 'First word best word ' Ginsberg does rewrite. I'm sure he does.