Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.

If pride is a sin ... moral pride is the greatest sin.

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

but writers, Garp knew, were just observers - good and ruthless imitators of human behavior.

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

I think that was when the headmaster realized he had lost; he realized then that he was finished. Because, what could he do? Was he going to tell us to stop praying? We kept our heads bowed; and we kept praying. Even as awkward as he was, the Rev. Mr. Merrill had made it clear to us that there was no end to praying for Owen Meany.

When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.