I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

I vividly remember being 14. That was the age when I started to get happy: I started being a writer and stopped being a loser.

To write a story about New York that only deals with people in your age and socioeconomic bracket that feels dishonest to me. So much of New York comes from everyone bumping into each other.

I started writing when I had three kids under the age of 4. I used to write every ten minutes I got to sit in front of a computer. Now when I have more time I function the same way: if it's writing time I write.

Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.

It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.

I want to sell to people my own age because that's the way I write songs.

I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers.

I try to write lyrics so that they won't age which sort of leaves you with the big subjects like death and love and sex and violence.

The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.

When I write about a 15-year old I jump I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

In an age of incompetence I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is at best presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry I was listening to European classical music.

I think the sport of wrestling which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34 kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long and the age of the great epics is past.

Each age it is found must write its own books or rather each generation for the next succeeding.