Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad.

I wouldn't have missed a single minute of it, Not for the whole world.

People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done.

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

THE THREE is really wonderful. A mix of Michael Crichton and Shirley Jackson, hard to put down and vastly entertaining.

To the devil with false modesty.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.