“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...”

“The postgrad at least knew enough to know that he would never know enough, lying under the stars which hung from the inky sky like bunches of inconceivably heavy, lustrous grapes, dusted with the y...”

“A cheap writer has an expensive thoughts.”

“It's rewarding if you have an opportunity to do something or to serve, you always give in your best. The world has changed, yes! But that shouldn't make you behave otherwise to the detriment of you...”

“The people of great value are the people who have a noble inner man”

“Anna thought about the men outside on the gallery. She was glad they were there; finding them smoking and talking quietly had been comforting, it was what men did in the evenings when the work was ...”

“Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary.She suddenl...”

“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urnThrows up a steamy column and the cupsThat cheer but not inebr...”

“There is something relentless about the serenity of nature which has a crushing effect on the human mind. The lavish splendour of her phases, which completely ignores human strife, fills the race o...”

“Almost every day I can feel myself suffering mainly in the head, I can explain the pain to myself but knowing it comes from an inflammation of my imagination doesn't prevent it being reality itself...”

“I guess in this culture of ever-shortening attention spans, it's good if a song can lift us out of the madness, even if only for a few minutes.”