If you build a better mousetrap, Nature will build a better mouse.

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.

I think persistence in the face of adversity is an essential part of a writer’s job description. If you don’t care enough about it to avoid being easily disheartened that way, you really should be doing something else.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

As a friend of mine, herself a writer, says, 'People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange'

If you cannot stand a spoon upright in the cup, then the coffee is too weak.

I haven't got anything against cats. I haven't got anything against elk either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep one in the store so I'll have a place to hang my hat.