It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world — in the form of bad ideas.

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

I say the same thing about the death of James Wait. "Oh, well -- he wasn't going to write the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway.

All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

There is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life.

You develop a style from writing a lot.

No moral value is greater than humanity.