I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out.

Outside, a gusty October breeze was combing leaves from the trees and sending them across her backyard in colorful skitters.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you're forced back on your own imagination.

If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.

Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it started.

I'd like to learn French well enough to write in that language.

Anger is the most useless emotion," Henchick intoned, "destructive to the mind and hurtful to the heart.