Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

Richard liked to say he picked things up for a song, which was odd, because he never sang. He never even whistled. He was not a musical person.

I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that isn't flawed somehow.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, 'Nobody under 40,' or 'Nobody under 25.' With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is 'reader.'

In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys.

Because you are never here but always there, I forget not you but what you look like You drift down the street in the rain, your face dissolving, changing shape, the colours running together My walls absorb you, breathe you forth again, you resume yourself, I do not recognize you You rest on the bed watching me watching you, we will never know each other any better than we do now

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.