“What other than mental illness spurs normal people to write prolifically? The chief cause is not quite illness, but nearly: love, especially unhappy love.”

“When others' obsessions are not ours, we are sad for them, and we talk of how empty their lives will be if they don't achieve their empty goal: the gymnastics prize, the firm partnership. But there is a monomania in which it is the focus, the sense of transport, that is the real pleasure.”

“What other than mental illness spurs normal people to write prolifically? The chief cause is not quite illness, but nearly: love, especially unhappy love.”

“Most agree that a useful definition of creative work is that it includes a combination of novelty and value. Creativity requires novelty because tried-and-true solutions are not creative, even if they are ingenious and useful. And creative works must be valuable (useful or illuminating to at least some members of the population) because a work that is merely odd is not creative. This two-pronged definition of creativity also provides an explanation of why the creative can lie close to the insane (unusual but valueless behavior).”

“Nonetheless, writing regularly, inspiration or no, is not a bad way to eventually get into an inspired mood; the plane has to bump along the runway for a while before it finally takes off.”

“How could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then I remind myself that…we should not be too fastidious about where great ideas come from. Ultimately, they all come from a wrinkled organ that at its healthiest has the color and consistency of toothpaste, and in the end only withers and dies.”