Time is a face on the water.

The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

I write to find out what I think.

He had never been a social man. He had shunned causes with contempt and disgust. They were for pig-simple suckers and people with too much time and money on their hands.

American grammar doesn't have the sturdiness of British grammar, but it has its own scruffy charm.

As a rule, I don't worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and my readers.