The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty.

Everybody wants to psychoanalyze horror. They don't want to psychoanalyze a book like Gay Talese's "Sex with Your Neighbor" [sic] or something like that. It's pretty much accepted that Americans should be interested in who they're diddling and how they're doing it.

You don't always talk with your mouth. Sometimes what you say with your mouth hardly matters at all. You have to signify

Listening to it was like having a mud-slimed piece of silk drawn lightly back and forth across her face.

They were trying to run, trying to hide. But the rock would not hide them; the dead tree gave no shelter.

The shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing.

There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.