For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

It has taken me years of struggle hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple beautiful sentence.

I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they're trying to write about. They have music.

Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.

I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

It took the Metropolitan Museum of Art nearly 50 years to wake up to Pablo Picasso. It didn't own one of his paintings until 1946 when Gertrude Stein bequeathed that indomitable quasi-Cubistic picture of herself - a portrait of the writer as a sumo Buddha - to the Met principally because she disliked the Museum of Modern Art.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book If art doesn't make us better then what on earth is it for.

It is no great art to say something briefly when like Tacitus one has something to say when one has nothing to say however and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar - that I call an achievement.

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds the book of their words and the book of their art.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene and as if by magic we see a new meaning in it.

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.

The writer when he is also an artist is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.

Every artist writes his own autobiography.

A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning restless urge to write or paint simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

If you do not breathe through writing if you do not cry out in writing or sing in writing then don't write because our culture has no use for it.

When I write now I do not invent situation characters or actions but rather structures and discursive forms textual groupings which are combined according to secret affinities among themselves as in architecture or the plastic arts.

It absolutely helped - to write the father in both 'Juicy' and 'Beasts ' I had to see the whole story from his point of view. All of a sudden I understood more of what my own father must be going through - the fear the frustration the anger... the hope that he'll leave a legacy.

I do like to write nasty songs. It's a useful weapon to have and it's cathartic as well because I create art out of anger something positive out of something negative.

It's usually a big kind of vent of frustration or anger or sadness that puts me in the right frame of mind to write. It's such a cliche to say that artists write when they're down but it's true for me. It's a relief to get out what's eating away at my heart or my soul or my head.

When someone says that I'm angry it's actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships which is part of why I'd write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman.

Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them.