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All writers start out mimicking other writers. I've never relinquished that. I have a good ear for speech and writing patterns.

Sometimes I think my writing sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.

As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.

Miller is not really a writer but a non-stop talker to whom someone has given a typewriter.

The only successful way to write, and the only one I have found, is to be the character. Give up on trying to control them. Writers always talk about hearing voices. That's what they mean.

I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in.

If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

I think the only way you can become a writer is through honing your voice, creating your own voice.

In fact, I think for a lot of writers, it's so hard to be read.