If it's commercial fiction that you want to write, it's story, story, story. You've got to get a story where if you tell it to somebody in a paragraph, they'll go, "Tell me more." And then when you start to write it, they continue to want to read more. And if you don't, it won't work.

There's nothing more annoying than cold logic and reason when you've got a good fit going.

Tell me again what we're doing here," I said, running a continuous scan of our surroundings. Fang popped some Cracker Jack into his mouth. "We're here to watch manly men do manly things." I followed Fang's line of sight: He was watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who were not doing manly things, by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't believe in lecturing people. It's much more effective to present reading as a fun, rewarding pastime.

I gave him a kick and he stepped back onto the third rail. Exploding, flaming eraser! This is why moms tell you to stay away from the third rail, but it sure came in handy this time.

They [Erasers] were bad fliers," Angel chimed in, "And in their minds, they weren't all kill the mutants, like they usually are. They were like, remember to flap!

A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but the stories really aren't that terrific.