I think many [newer] writers are told to “write what you know” because doing so inherently puts them in touch with the sort of deep struggles they’ve wrestled with—even though the fledging writer might immediately downgrade the importance of those struggles simply because they went through them, and feel such struggles aren’t “poetic” enough to justify being written about. But much good writing is about self-evaluation, self-observation. We simultaneously see ourselves in the world and see ourselves through the world. One must care deeply about what we write or else we won’t see deeply enough to make others care and see…

Most writing happens when one is alone, you really have to assume yourself into your stories, and you need to feel true empathy with others in order to be able to write convincingly.

I feed off of my observations, above all. Sometimes it just takes a remark for an idea for a story or a character to arise. Or unconsciously I store things away and the next time I sit down to write, they come back to me. Obviously writing is a digestion of our experiences. Certain characters of mine draw on the image I have of people in my life...But I think that what makes a text interesting is its capacity to go beyond one’s own experiences, to succeed in sharing a different world. This requires a lot of sensitivity, and also self-knowledge. Writing allows me to better understand the world in which I developed. If I really want to create meaning, I must be honest with myself, and not present a simplistic version of things. Most of the time this means setting aside my own experiences, transcending them.

I think what writing should be at its essence is a creative expression, it should be informed by the needs of the story, by the dictates of your characters…I feel like I can write any character I want—an African, a European, a writer can do anything, it just has to feel true to the story.

It is common enough for writers to find that, in the very act of writing, they express ideas and beliefs which they never knew they had; a deeper level of their personality is revealed, a level hidden until then from conscious awareness.

Personally, I think it’s very important for a writer to know what kinds of things are beyond his or her knowledge. Even though I spent a lot of time with people who came from Russia, and visited Russia eight times before writing “Confessions,” I knew it wasn’t possible for me to write what’s going on in Alek’s mind.

Definitely if I am writing something that feels completely straight, I’ll sew some queerness in there, because queerness is always there. It’s like when you’re writing a cityscape, you need to write in the characters that would be there. To me, not doing that is more of a choice.

You must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world that holds offices, and all society... In short, you must write to the human heart, the great consciousness that all humanity goes to make up. Otherwise what might be strength in a writer is only crudeness, and what might be insight is only observation; sentiment falls to sentimentality - you can write about life, but never write life itself... To work in silence and with all one's heart, that is the writer's lot; he is the only artist who must be a solitary, and yet needs the widest outlook upon the world.

…The reason why people connected with the characters is because they are real, and to write real characters you have to go deep into them. As a human you look at another human and you come with your own judgements, but as a writer you have to put that aside and just look at people for who they are. It is a process, and much of it is subconscious…

To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.

That feeling of being connected to someone else, when you allow yourself to be very particular, is another mystery of writing.

That instinct for human character that is perhaps inherent in an imaginative writer.

writing cannot be just about battling and polemics, however invigorating and comforting that can be. Writing is not about one thing, not about this issue or that, or this concern or another, and since its concern is human life in one way or another, sooner or later cruelty and love and weakness become its subject. I believe that writing also has to show what can be otherwise, what it is that the hard domineering eye cannot see, what makes people, apparently small in stature, feel assured in themselves regardless of the disdain of others. So I found it necessary to write about that as well, and to do so truthfully, so that both the ugliness and the virtue come through, and the human being appears out of the simplification and stereotype. When that works, a kind of beauty comes out of it. And that way of looking makes room for frailty and weakness, for tenderness amid cruelty, and for a capacity for kindness in unlooked for sources. It is for these reasons that writing has been for me a worthwhile and absorbing part of my life.

As a story develops, you must willingly entertain opposite, even repugnant ideas. The finest writers have dialectical, flexible minds that easily shift points of view. They see the positive, the negative, and all shades of irony, seeking the truth of these views honestly and convincingly. This omniscience forces them to become even more creative, more imaginative, and more insightful. Ultimately, they express what they deeply believe, but not until they have allowed themselves to weight each living issue and experience all its possibilities.