• write daily - if you don't write daily, "what would happen is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. if you did not write everyday the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you "
• "gently lie and prove the lie true ...everything is finally a promise... what seems a lie is a ramshackle need, wishing to be born..."
• remember: zest, gusto. " if you write without zest, without gusto, without fun, you are only half a writer "
• find formula - "find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all his heart. give him running orders. shoot him off. then follow as fast as you can go. the character, in his great love, or hate, will rush you through to the end of the story. The zest and gusto of his need, and there is zest in hate as well as in love, will fire the landscape and raise the temperature of your typewriter thirty degrees."
• read - "when did you last read a book of poetry or take time, of an afternoon, for an essay or two? have you ever read a single issue of geriatrics , the official journal of the american geriatrics society, a magazine devoted to 'research and clinical study of the diseases and processes of the aged and aging'? or read, or even seen what's new a magazine published by abbot laboratories in north chicago, containing articles such as "tubocuraene for cesarean section" or "phenurone in epilepsy," but also utilizing poems by william carlos williams, archibald macleish, stories by clifton fadiman and leo rosten; covers and interior illustration by john groth, aaron bohrod, william sharp, russel cowles? absurd? perhaps. but ideas lie everywhere, like apples fallen and melting in the grass for lack of wayfaring strangers with an eye and a tongue for beauty, whether absurd, horrific, or genteel."
• feed your muse - "to feed your muse [...] you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. if not, it is a little late to start. better late than never, of course. do you feel up to it? it means you must still take long walks at night around your city or town, or walks in the country by day. and long walks, at any time, through book stores and libraries."
• keep your muse - "the muse must have shape. you will write a thousand words a day for ten or twenty years in order to try to give it shape, to learn enough about grammar and story construction so that these become part of the subconscious, without restraining or distorting the muse."
• the end result - "by living well, by observing as you live, by reading well and observing as you read, you have fed your most original self. by training yourself in writing by repetitious exercise, imitation, food example, you have made a clean, well lighted place to keep the muse.

More practically

• "write quick. in quickness is truth. the faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. in hesitation is thought. in delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth dead falling or tiger-trapping."
• "write at least thousand words a day everyday; discover the treats and tricks that come with word association; put down brief notes and descriptions of loves and hates."
• "make lists of titles, put down long lists of nouns. run through those lists, pick a noun and then sit down to write a long prose poem-essay-story on it."

and finally

• don't be tepid - " if you are going to step on a live mine, make it your own. be blown up as it were, by your own delights and despairs "