God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.

My characters talk to one another, and when it reaches a certain pitch of excitement I jump out of bed and run and trap them before they are gone.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can't resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you're in love.

Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

Libraries are the center of our lives. There's no use going to a university if you don't live at the library.

I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it's immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it.

I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.