The only way to write a novel is to proceed as if you had all the time in the world.

The only way to write a novel is to proceed as if you had all the time in the world.

The simplest tool of the writer is repetition. . . . The simplest tool of the writer is repetition.

It's not enough simply to record the way people actually talk. The dialogue must be concentrated, shaped, dramatically moving, in a way that real-life conversation seldom is.

The habits of craft, developed day in and day out over a working lifetime, create moments of astonishment, sublime and magical effects, precisely because the writer is not thinking overtly about making art.

Voice really depends on the answer to the question, Who is telling this story? . . . That will color your diction-and determine your metaphors, your sensibility.

You will not read voice on the page; you will hear it in your head.