My,' she said. 'We're lucky that you found the place.' We're always lucky,' I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.

They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher. A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him.

Everyone my age had written a novel and I was still having difficulty writing a paragraph.

Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years for fear of getting stuff that will be simply timely and then go sour.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.

In order to write about life first you must live it.

I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you're yet to be.