If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.

I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.

If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.

You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.

I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions.

I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does. You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.

Beat him, eat him and get out.