Never talk yourself out of knowing you're in love or into thinking that you are.

Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance.

My publisher is generous with deadlines, which are never set in stone. Some writers need that pressure, but I am more productive when there's less panic.

Time plays like an accordion in the way it can stretch out and compress itself in a thousand melodic ways. Months on end may pass blindingly in a quick series of chords, open-shut, together-apart; and then a single melancholy week may seem like a year's pining, one long unfolding note.

But things change, of course, and so do the ways in which people see themselves.

And then there's the personal question so many of Lassie's fans want to ask: Is he allowed on the furniture? Of course he is-but, then, he's the one who paid for it.

Of all the virtues, discretion began to seem the most rewarding: it kept people guessing and sometimes, by default, admiring.