Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

There is nothing quite so delightfully mysterious as a secret in your own backyard.

And if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that cool props and special effects are not enough. Story comes first. Everything depends on story.

You need to realize that most writing rules aren't laws, they're rules of thumb.

It's not prowess if you watch 5 hours of TV a day. It's just how you choose to spend your time.

So Stapes conducted a dinner for just the two of us, then informed me of a dozen small but important mistakes I had made. Setting down a dirty utensil was considered crude, for example. That meant it was perfectly acceptable to lick one's knife clean. In fact, if you didn't want to dirty your napkin it was the only seemly thing to do.

Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation.