Bad writing is more than a matter of (expletive deleted) syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the low-hanging overcast, surrounded by a fairy-ring of moisture.

There are things of such darkness and horror—just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty—that they will not fit through the puny human doors of perception.

The multiple choices of possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to.

The dream might have been more than a dream. It was as if a door in the wall of reality had come ajar... and now all sorts of unwelcome things were flying through.

My heart's with you, Bill, no matter how it turns out. My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, we'll remember in our dreams.