The frankest and freest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter; the writer gets his limitless freedom of statement and expression from his sense that no stranger is going to see what he is writing.
Richard A. Posner is an extraordinary person. If he did not exist, it would be hard to believe that he could. (...) He writes with a flair that puts most journalists to shame and a depth of knowledge that puts most professors to shame.
"Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of "going in for photography," you will find that very few of them can ever make a picture by photography; they lack the science, technical knowledge, and above all the practice. Most people think they can play tennis, shoot, write novels, and photograph as well as any other person - until they try."
For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.
A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe's will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook.
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.
I'm just writing love songs. I'm not trying to be pop. I'm not trying to be jazz. I'm not trying to be anything. I'm just writing love songs. And everyone loves a love song.
At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.
Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'
Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet.