The truth is that the world is full of dragons, and none of us are as powerful or cool as we’d like to be. And that sucks. But when you’re confronted with that fact, you can either crawl into a hole and quit, or you can get out there, take off your shoes, and Bilbo it up.

I learned to love the feel of good words.

A lot of new writers assume you have to know the where the story is going and that it flows out as molten gold. But really, sometimes you think you are going to one place, but then you decide that is dumb idea. Then you go somewhere else and it is a worse idea. But then you switch again and you might have a beautiful accident.

To be both rich and handsome was bad enough. But to have a voice like honey over warm bread on top of that was simply inexcusable.

Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned

If I talk about what I'm good at, I seem like I'm a conceited egomaniac.