Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

Is rule of thumb in writing game: if story requires many long descriptions of smells so vile that will give reader nausea, is not likely to find publisher.

Behind every closed door might wait a thief of minds and a collector of souls.

Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.

Death came, Death went, but Commerce flowed Eternal.

All but universally, human architecture values front elevations over back entrances, public spaces over private. Danny Jessup says that this aspect of architecture is also a reflection of human nature, that most people care more about their appearance than they do about their souls.

When we hope, we usually hope for the wrong thing.