I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.

Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.

When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

If you have a character stand up and put on her shoes and open the door, in order to do that, you're imagining her shoes and her clothes and her house and her door. The character becomes more real. But once you've done that, you can probably just get it all across with a couple of details.

This is true in other fields, too, that a legal aid lawyer gets a whole lot less money than a Hollywood lawyer who handles the estates of celebrities. Maybe the legal aid lawyer is doing something better, though, and maybe they're happier. It's not a completely unheard of idea, but I do think we have to remind ourselves at times to look for satisfaction in other ways.

I think a day in your life on which nothing bad happens may be a wonderful day, but it probably isn't going to be the basis of a story.