You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.

The best thing about being a best-selling writer is being a best-selling writer. More seriously, today I can write full time and pay the bills.

If you don't compromise your gift, if you write each day as well as you can, and then submit your work and not worry about it and go on to the next piece, you suddenly find oddly enough that you're no more interested in the applause than the silence. You don't hear either one of them. You can never listen to the naysayers. If you do you won't survive.

When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.

You do it a day at a time. You just put your rejection slips in a shoebox and tell yourself one day you're going to autograph them and sell them at auction.

Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it'd irreversible.

It has been my experience that most human stories are circular rather than linear. Regardless of the path we choose, we somehow end up where we commenced - in part, I suspect, because the child who lives in us goes along for the ride.