I wasn't very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children's birthday party what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos.

The best writing is not about the writer the best writing is absolutely not about the writer it's about us it's about the reader.

Like anything else that happens on its own the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have but when it comes to the act of creation the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

In writing and politicking it's best not to think about it just do it.

The real beauty of it - key to my life was playing key chords on a banjo. For somebody else it may be a golf club that mom and dad put in their hands or a baseball or ballet lessons. Real gift to give to me and put it in writing.

Beauty can't amuse you but brainwork - reading writing thinking - can.

All my writing is about the recognition that there is no single reality. But the beauty of it is that you nevertheless go on walking towards utopia which may not exist on a bridge which might end before you reach the other side.

Because if one is writing novels today concentrating on the beauty of the prose is right up there with concentrating on your semi-colons for wasted effort.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful for beauty is God's handwriting.

My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering you remember where all the little bits are that don't meet. And then your friends say: It's terrific!

On 'Van Halen ' I was a young punk and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning ' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

It has taken me years of struggle hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple beautiful sentence.

It's a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

There are so many opportunities in life that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art writing or music.

I love doing normal things - movies shopping going out with friends writing reading taking hot bubble baths - that's a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.

Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.