You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.

It's a wonderful thing, as a writer, to be given parameters and walls and barriers.

Agnes was the worst prophet that's ever existed. Because she was always right. That's why the book never sold.

It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.

There is a madness, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness...

And, too ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristan Thorn traveled beyond the fields we know.

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.