I started to submit when I was twelve, and obviously at that time they weren't good enough, and I suppose in my heart of hearts I knew it. But you have to start sooner or later, you have to dig in.

Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.

The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.

Fear is the emotion that makes us blind.

That's something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

That's not such a bad thing,' he said to me. 'In nightmares we can think the worst. That's what they're for, I guess.