Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.

Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both past and present.

If you make people laugh or cry about little black marks on sheets of white paper, what is that but a practical joke? All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again.

The reason we write fiction is because it's so much easier to exist spending part of each day in an imaginary world.

Powers Hapgood had just come from court because there was some kind of dust-up on a picket line. The judge was so curious about him - coming from a rich family - why he would choose to live as he had. I guess you know what his answer was ..."The Sermon on the Mount, sir." That's important.

Be fruitful, and multiply.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.