Maybe I'm needy, neurotic, paranoid. Under the circumstances, of course, if I weren't needy, neurotic, and paranoid, I'd obviously be psychotic.

I've had good publishers and bad publishers, and you've got to learn when the advice is sensible and when it's not.

...he was part of a family whether he wanted to be or not, the family of humanity, more often than not a frustrating and contentious clan, flawed and often deeply confused, but also periodically noble and admirable, with a common destiny that every member shared.

A short-order cook, just off work, makes easy tracking for lions and worse

A plot without action is like pasta without garlic, like Dolly Parton without cleavage, and like a writer without his similes.

The snow did not even whisper its way to earth, but seemed to salt the night with silence.

I have more self-doubt than any writer I've ever known.... The positive aspect of self-doubt - if you can channel it into useful activity instead of being paralyzed by it - is that by the time you reach the end of a novel, you know precisely why you made every decision in the narrative, the multiple purposes of every metaphor and image.