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

For the big stuff to work credibly, you've got to get the little stuff absolutely right.

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.

We create an interior 'movie' in the reader's head through words on the page.

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.

But a writing project begins not just in doubt but also in faith-that if your passion is genuine, if you have mastered the elements of your craft, in the act of writing you will learn the rest of what you need to know in order to do justice to your subject.