When you're at odds with yourself, it's hard to create. Sometimes the writing process is as easy as opening up the window and letting in the breeze. And sometimes it's like chiseling away at a block of granite with a pencil.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

To create something from nothing is one of the greatest feelings, and I would-I don't know, I wish it upon everybody. It's heaven.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life - a life that should be new in freedom.