You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or despair ... Come to it any way but lightly.

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.

where the world ends is where you must begin

if you tell yourself the great lie of bad art-that you are in charge-your chance at the truth will be lost. The truth isn't always pretty.

Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.

The most important things are the hardest to say

Never give a good politician time to pray.