Uninvited criticism is insult.

Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on.

Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven't before?

Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters.

Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

Using language like jungle growth isn't the solution to telling a story.