writers quote daily

Mamet on why?

...I had all this stuff about the kid not going to sleep, and it finally occurred to me, about the billionith draft, well, [The Cryptogram]'s about why can't the kid sleep? It's not that the kid can't sleep, but why can't the kid sleep? --David Mamet

Cather on memory

All my stories have been written with material that was gathered--no, God save us! not gathered but absorbed--before I was fifteen years old. --Willa Cather