When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.
There came a time when I felt I was not going to be satisfied with life unless I could write.
I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else.
Becoming a writer wasn't a choice (there would have been far more worthwhile things to do); it was the best, most fruitful way of being a bit ill.
I've been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don't need to write a book for adults.
A writer without a pen would be like a duck without water!
Well, I have to write. A lot of people forget that. They think I’m sort of crazy baffoon who can’t make up his mind what to do in life
Writers talk about the agony of writing; I talk about the agony of not writing.
Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.
I have to go on writing because I wouldn't be able to go on without writing. It is the only function that works for me, and without that function, I would die.
I have very little choice. If I don't write, I feel dreadful. So I write.
I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch.
Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.
Socrates ... did not write. It seems academically obvious that he perished because he did not publish!
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was going to go on being an illustrator, I had to start writing the stories, too.
Without question, I've either got to be a writer, or I fail.
At this point in my life, I'm probably not gonna be able to stop writing because it's gonna help me be able to do what I need to do.
Actually, when I write, there is a feeling of necessity, of something that is stronger than myself that demands that I must write as I write.
Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.
When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.
You could tie my hands to my sides, I suppose, but I have to write. For my own mental health, I need to write.
I write as a matter of need - seven books and God knows how many short stories before anyone published me.
The only thing that makes me crazier than writing is not writing.
I write every day. Writing is a necessity - like eating.
