When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.

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

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it.

You had to get everything exactly right or the editors would give you hell.