You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn’t last long in nature. They’re too conspicuous.

When we're young, we like happy endings. When we're a little older, we think happy endings are unrealistic and so we prefer bad but credible endings. When we're older still, we realize happy endings aren't so bad after all.

The short answer to 'Why do you write' is - I suppose I write for some of the same reasons I read: to live a double life; to go places I haven't been; to examine life on earth; to come to know people in ways, and at depths, that are otherwise impossible; to be surprised.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

The road to death is a lonely highway, and longer than it apears, even when it leads straight down from the scaffold, by way of a rope; and it's a dark road, with never any moon shining on it, to light your way.