I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.

I’m really alive! he thought. I never knew it before, or if I did I don’t remember!

Remember, with writing, what you’re looking for is just one person to come up and tell you, 'I love you for what you do.'

I'm not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

The wind outside nested in each tree, prowled the sidewalks in invisible treads like unseen cats. Tom Skelton shivered. Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.

Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else.

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help.