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Writing is just something I've always done. It's just kind of the reality of who I am.

My feeling is that writing is, for me, a pathological condition. That could sound like a mystical experience, and it may be a mystical experience, but I have learnt just to go with it.

Writing is a way of getting at the things most people would prefer to escape. Writing takes me to the center of life. That's my invitation to my readers as well.

I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

It's so much easier to write for a person in your life than to write for some imagined readership, so you write something that's more intimate and true.

Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.

The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.

The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.

Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially.