The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
The writer, the poet, the novelist, are all creators. This does not mean that they invent language; it means that they use language to create beauty, ideas, images. This is why we cannot do without them.
Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.
A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.
If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.
A writer should never allow himself to be lulled out of the vigilance native to his profession.
No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart.
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.