Maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything.

I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read

Without story books is like a person with no soul.

It is the tale, not he who tells it.

Give a man or woman back his self-respect, and in most cases-not all, but most-you also give back that person's ability to think with at least some clarity.

You cannot friend a hawk, they said, unless you are a hawk yourself, alone and only a sojourner in the land, without friends or the need of them.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.