Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.

When you start, it's very cold, an impossible task. But then maybe the characters start to take on a little bit of life, or the story takes a turn that you don't expect ... With me that happens a lot because I don't outline, I just have a vague notion. So it's always felt like less of a made thing and more of a found thing. That's exciting. That's a thrill.

If you can't laugh when things go bad--laugh and put on a little carnival--then you're either dead or wishing you were.

All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.

Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.