People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?

If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.

Rewriting is when writing really gets to be fun. . . . In baseball you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball.

The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose.

Don't listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today.

Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It's almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.

The body of a young woman is God's greatest achievement...Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can't have everything.