Gettting to know your characters is so much more important than plotting. Working out every detail of your story in advance, especially when you don't yet know your main characters, always seems a little too much like playing God. You're working out your characters' lives, their destiny, before they've had a chance to discover who they are and what kind of people they want to be.
Alexander Gordon SmithWhen you're locked up in here for life, you learn to welcome the little freedoms.
Alexander Gordon SmithThere always has to be someone to take the punches. That's how it works. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but that kid licking slop off the floor over there means that we get to eat in peace.
Alexander Gordon SmithSomething in my gut twisted so hard that it felt like I was being tickled by an invisible hand, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Hope. It had been so long since I'd felt it that the sensation was like something living inside me, something wonderful waiting to break free, just like I was.
Alexander Gordon Smith