People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail.

I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry.

You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?

I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted.

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

Odd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.