Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Here I am with you & yet not for a single moment do I forget that there's an unfinished novel waiting for me.

My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave's blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being--not a slave's--coursing through his veins.

Solomon made a big mistake when he asked for wisdom.

When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'