A great whispering noise began to rise in the woods on either side of the tracks, as if the forest had just noticed we were there and was commenting on it.

Sometimes stories cry out to be told in such loud voices that you write them just to shut them up.

Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.

How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?

I start work around 8 a.m. and usually finish around noon. If there's more to do, I do it in the late afternoon, although that isn't prime time for me.

Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story... To make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.

The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.