I never feel really comfortable unless I am either actually writing or have a story going. I could not stop writing.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

P.g. Wodehouse Paris Review Interview Writing

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.

~ Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw Drinking Irwin Shaw Paris Review Interview Sober Writing

...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible, then you win. If you don't, you may make a fortune in ten years, but you're not going to be read in twenty years, and that's that.

~ John Gardner

John Gardner Morality Paris Review Interview

If someone asks me, “Why do you write?” I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is an answer. I write because I hate. A lot. Hard. And if someone asks me the inevitable next dumb question, “Why do you write the way you do?” I must answer that I wish to make my hatred acceptable because my hatred is much of me, if not the best part. Writing is a way of making the writer acceptable to the world—every cheap, dumb, nasty thought, every despicable desire, every noble sentiment, every expensive taste.

~ William H. Gass

William H. Gass Hatred Paris Review Interview Writing