There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else.

I have a blog where I keep in touch with my fans. I write about things that are important to me. Sometimes on there I'll just tell a little story about the things that happen in my everyday life. People seem to enjoy them well enough.

Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.

...hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.

I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.

How about this?' Simmon asked me. "Which is worse, stealing a pie or killing Ambrose?" I gave it a moment's hard thought. "A meat pie, or a fruit pie?

If you're going to have a book full of clever people and nobody ever jokes, it's just not going to ring true to the reader. That said, humor writing is the hardest kind of writing there is.