It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

I've killed enough of the world's trees.

I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing… I can always get a J. Crew catalogue… …So spare me, if you please, the hero’s ‘sharply intelligent blue eyes’ and ‘outthrust determined chin’.

the year she had run fleetly through the dewy grass under the moon- the night of wine, when dreams condensed out of thin air like the nightmilk of fantasy.

Cut him. Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice.

But it's hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don't pleasure him no more.

we need ghost stories because we, in fact, are the ghosts.