On Writing, a memoir of the craft by Stephen King

I feel like I've read this book umpteenth times.  Every time it circles around, I notice something new I can relate to.  In this copy of On Writing that I am holding in this photo, there are three different times (at least) that I've read it and chose to highlight different areas.  

This is what I grabbed from my most recent read.  I plan on elaborating on how these bridge to my art making but, in the meantime:

 "Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we?  There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky...Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up."

"If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it..."

"...write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.  Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.  Once you know what the story is and get it right - as right as you can, anyway - it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.  Or criticize it...more will want to do the former than the latter."

"Writing is a lonely job.  Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.  They don't have to make speeches.  Just believing is usually enough."

"Life isn't a support system for art.  It's the other way around."

"When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not?  Of course you do.  When you're writing, you're creating your own worlds." 

"I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way.  On the contrary, I want them to do things their way.  In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized.  In most, however, it's something I never expected."

"But I think you will find that, in most cases, your first visualized details will be the truest and best...it's as easy to overdescribe as to underdescribe.  Probably easier."