I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.

Editing is the same as quarrelling with writers - same thing exactly.

It is unfortunate that so much of the history of Africa has been written by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The Egyptians left the best record of their history written by local writers.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda. Propaganda can be written by anybody, including dictators.

Many children's writers don't have children of their own.

Writers speak stench.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

Offhand, the only North American writers I can think of who have come from a background of rural poverty and gone on to write about it have been Negroes.

I would dream. I focused all my attention on going to America. The subculture, James Dean, the rock n' roll, the beat writers.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

I'm inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art.

If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

The first thing to look out for after your first big success are drugs and screenplays.

Writers should be read - but neither seen nor heard.

First coffee. Then a bowel movement. Then the muse joins me.

Writers talk too much.

In six pages, I can't even say Hello.