It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.

I have always been jealous of artists. The smell of the studio, the names of the various tools, the look of a half-finished canvas all shout of creation. What do writers have in comparison? Only the flat paper, the clacketing of the typewriter or the scrape of a pen across a yellow page. And then, when the finished piece is presented, there is a small wonder on one hand, a manuscript smudged with erasures or crossed out lines on the other. The impact of the painting is immediate, the manuscript must unfold slowly through time.

If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.

A shadowless man is a monster, a devil, a thing of evil. A man without a shadow is soulless. A shadow without a man is a pitiable shred. Yet together, light and dark, they make a whole.

Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.

Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.

A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.