"Modern poets add a lot of water..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realized, it is hardly distinguishable from fantasy.”

“I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.”

“Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.”

“Poets are simply those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss.”

“If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them -- you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.”

“One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.”

“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

“Never settle for average.”

“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.”