Screenplays are not writing. They're a fake form of writing. It's a lot of dialogue and very little atmosphere. Very little description. Very little character work. It's very dangerous. You'll never learn to write.

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

You either have an imaginative mind or you don't. All of my writing is God-given. I don't write my stories - they write themselves.

What do you do, go around trying everything once?' he asked. 'Sometimes twice.

Way out in the country tonight he could smell the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the triangle eye and the singeing candle.