I always give my students exercises where they really have to open a vein and bleed all over the paper and that's the way you get the important characters. Sooner or later every writer worth reading writes a story his mother wouldn't read and having to get that stuff out is part of one's growth as a writer.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end.

I have a huge emotional attachment to characters I've created, especially the viewpoint characters.

When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

That night the wind was howling almost like a wolf and there were some real wolves off to the west giving it lessons.

When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.

Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.