Writing is like a contact sport, like football. Why do kids play football? They can get hurt on any play, can't they? Yet they can't wait until Saturday comes around so they can play on the high school team, or the college team, and get smashed around. Writing is like that. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it!

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices

The writer works in a lonely way.

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer

I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself.