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

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.

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

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

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.

Storytelling is the art of unfolding knowledge in a way that makes each piece contribute to a larger truth.

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