I think I would DIE if I couldn't get to the typewriter EVERY day. I REALLY NEED that.

I did that for 40 YEARS or more. I NEVER had any WRITER's block. I got up in the morning, SAT down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

I remember visiting my GRANDMOTHER Adele in Ponce Inlet, FLORIDA, when I was THREE years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter. I thought that this electric typewriter was about the most fascinating toy in the world - I liked the little BELL and the sounds and the feel of the keys and especially the erase key.

I REMEMBER the early days when every month I had to DECIDE whether I should continue to lease a TYPEWRITER or if I could finally afford to BUY it. Yes, that $12 a month really made a difference in our BUDGET.

I've SPENT my LIFE ALONE in a ROOM with a TYPEWRITER.

I TYPE most of my books for the first chapter or two - I USE a manual typewriter for the first 50 pages or so - and then I move to the computer. It HELPS me keep the work LEAN so I don't end up spending 10 pages describing a LEAF.

My FIRST typewriter cost me $75. I can't tell you how many hours it took me to earn that MONEY, or how proud I was of that OBJECT. I wrote my first books on it. They will NEVER be PUBLISHED, but that's all right.

I THINK there are some writers - like, if you read Kerouac, I think you probably need to take a little break before you sit down to the TYPEWRITER because he's the TYPE of writer WHOSE voice infects you.

When I was very little, four or five, I did comic strip DRAWINGS, so my first novel had no words. I couldn't write and THOUGHT adult handwriting was a mysterious scribble. When I was 14, my grandmother gave me a typewriter and I STARTED writing in a DIFFERENT way.

When I began to WRITE and used a TYPEWRITER, I went through three drafts of a book before SHOWING it to an editor.

My Panasonic typewriter can MAKE graphs. It TYPES in FOUR different COLORS.

A TYPEWRITER forces you to KEEP GOING, to march FORWARD.