“A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.”

“A funny yet interesting read, Will Self knowa his stuff and must do a lot of deep research.”

“Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, sh...”

“Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substa...”

“You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you...”

“For the rest, silence or good music, not much food, a lot of solitude, walks on the Heath, the time to think while others... well, often fall apart. Not so bad, not so bad at all. Being queer and s...”

“I closed my eyes and turned my face into the cold wind. When I felt it swept along my skin there was no past. No future. Just now.”

“The Universe is very, very big.It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules.Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever.Not you or your family or your house or your planet or...”

“Everything in ...nature, is descended out that which is eternal, and stands as a. ..visible outbirth of it, so when we know how to separate out the grossness, death, and darkness. ..from it, we fin...”

“When I was younger we had a grape arbor, and my mom would go out and pick grapes and make grape jam in the sink - boil it, put it in jars, and give it away as gifts.”

“Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.”

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

“I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myse...”