“To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.”

“A big bee, a golden furry fellow, crept into a freesia, and the delicate flower leaned over, swung, shook; and when the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laughing. Happy, careless ...”

“I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.”

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others ... Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."(Journal entry, 14 October 1922)”

“I do not know why I have such a fancy for this little caf. It's dirty and sad, sad. It's not as if it had anything to distinguish it from a hundred othersit hasn't; or as if the same strange types ...”

“Everything about her was sweet, pale like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.”

“When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth ...”

“Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion.”

“My life will be the best illustration of all my work.”

“Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make the...”

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

“A culture of unaccountability is a culture without incentive, and a culture without incentive is the death of critical and creative thinking.”

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”

“Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.”

“People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links t...”