When I was 11 (in 1970), I saved my allowance and sent away for the pink covered paperback: The Boys and Girl's Book About Divorce. There was no Dr. Phil back then and I wanted good information.
Now as an adult I see that writing is sending out messages in a bottle hoping they might land on an island and be read.
The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do those things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job. Sarah Manguso
Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Edwidge Danticat
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