In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!

I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.

I have noticed before that there is a category of acquaintanceship that is not friendship or business or romance, but speculation, fascination.

Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive style of delivery, hones over the years in elementary-econ lecture halls. He knew, without even thinking, to address the middle rows of the hall, but to occasionally "shoot" the listeners in the back corners. He knew how to make eye contact and solicit the attention of those who were thinking of other things.

A novelist is on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing.

Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom.