The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
Literally thousands of e-mails over the course of a book go out to people I've never met, people who might end up being the focus of a chapter.
The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
I can't imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author's business to write, not talk.
I've never believed it's a fiction writer's job to create an exact replica of the past, a diorama the reader can step right into. But it is my responsibility to learn everything of the world I'm writing about, to become an expert in the politics and history that formed my characters' identities.
If I am a prolific writer and turn my hand, with what seems to some as indecent haste, from novels to screenplays to stage and radio plays, it is because there is so much to be said, so few of us to say it, and time runs out.
A word can be transformed into a coulour, light, a smell; it is the writer's task to use it in such a way that it serves, never fails, can never be ignored.
That's what I try to do as a writer and as the editor of HuffPost: cover important stories in an obsessive way that enables them to break through the din of our multimedia universe.
Writers themselves benefit from all helpful information about their task and methods. Readers, in turn, can have both their understanding and appreciation of literature enhanced by information about the writer's work.
Our job as writers, as far as I can tell, is to attempt to express what seems inexpressible.
A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.
We're past the age of heroes and hero kings... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.
A writer could spend years reading already-published books just to gain a grasp of the historical terrain.
When you sit down to write, you have to be prepared to strip all of those voices away, all of the censors away, and talk about what you think the truth is, which I think is really the task of the writer - to get to the truth.
The writer must hew the phantom rock.
I am due at the page.
Since - in my belief system - we each get only one go-round here on planet Earth, it is the task of the writer to interpret, examine, and reflect on the specifics of their one and only life experience.
