Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

It is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.

For scientists, reality is not optional.

Every life is different because you passed this way and touched history... Listen being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different though. You could say the view is larger.

Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

I personally am inclined to approach [housework] the way governments treat dissent: ignore it until it revolts.