You think of the book you'd most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.

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A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.

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You have to finish things - that's what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.

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I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

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There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's books and write your own.

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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. - Elmore Leonard

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I love to write and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.

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Great men cultivate love...only little men cherish a spirit of hatred

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I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business. The day you die.

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People’s good deeds we write in water. The evil deeds are etched in brass.

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