writerly advice

Seeking writerly inspiration and comfort, I've been reading from vintage NY Times' "Writers on Writing" series. So far:

Allegra Goodman:
Love your material. Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head.

Sara Paretsky:
I felt a sort of desperate need to start writing down the lives of people without voices. Instead of princesses who lived happily ever after...I began writing about ordinary people whose lives, like mine, were filled with the anomie that comes from having no voice, no power.

And Russell Banks:
Artists are a lot like gangsters. They both know that the official version, the one everyone else believes, is a lie.