We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery.

I write to discover what I think.

I write to find out what I'm talking about.

Writing is often the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about.

I do not know what I think until I write it.

We write to find out what we know and what we want to say.

I write to find out what I think.

I don't know what I think until I write it down.

"One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or ten years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viny jungles toward untold wonders? That's what you wanted to write about, about what you didn't know. So. What mysterious time and place don't we know?"

[<i>Remember This: Write What You Don't Know</i> (<i>New York Times Book Review</i>, December 31, 1989)]

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

We write to discover what we think.

You know too little and it doesn't exist. You know too much and it doesn't exist. Writing is drawing the essence of what we know out of the shadows. That is what writing is about. Not what happens there, not what actions are played out there, but the THERE itself. There, that is writing's location and aim. But how to get there?

Writing is a mysterious activity.

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.