But try as I might, I never got to eat any of her pastries, and do you know, she never even offered me one.

Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.

But just as soon as this war's over and finished with,I'll get back home and marry her.I've grown up with her, Joey, known her all my life. S'pose I know her almost as well as I know myself, and I like her a lot better.

Unless you can be in a place yourself and go through the subject of your story yourself, the next best thing is not to read a book about it, or see a movie about it, it's to talk to the people who've been there.

I can hate you more, but I'll never love you less.

I spend months, sometimes years, doing what I call dreamtime, weaving it together inside my head. But when I actually feel that the egg of my story is ready to hatch, then I can write it in three months. Then I know the landscape and the people well and from the inside, but I don't necessarily know where the story is going to take us.