If you don't know what to do with an answer, don't ask the question.

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

If a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer 'writer' for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer poetry would embarrass us both.

If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.

Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers I'd be a politician.

I don't answer questions about conjectures.

Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.

"For two years I have refused to answer idle questions on the order of "Is your novel an open work or not?" How should I know? That is your business, not mine. Or "With which of your characters do you identify?" For God's sake, with whom does an author identify? With the adverbs, obviously."

There are questions that you don't ask because you're afraid of the answers to them.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

don't ask me a lot of questions if you don't like the answers