At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.

A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.

I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

Book tours and research provide a lot of travel - too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

Love is a dangerous thing. It comes in disguise to change our life... Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination. Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss.