William Goyen quotes:

Maybe solitude is best had in the midst of multitudes.

For me, environment is all. Place is absolutely essential.

It's amazing how quickly something gets written. Now, when it comes, it can be on a bus, or in a store. I've stopped in Macy's and written on a dry-goods counter and then suddenly had a whole piece of writing for myself that was accomplished, where earlier in my life I felt I had to spend a week in a house somewhere in the country in order to get that. Conditions change.

There's nothing better than an elegant cry of despair.