You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

I would say plotting is the most difficult thing for me. Characterization is only hard because sometimes I feel I get so interested in it that I want to talk too much about the characters and that slows the story down. So I say, "Hey, people want to find out what's going to happen next, they don't want to listen to you spout off about this or that person." But I think even the bad guy deserves to tell his side of the story.

Small towns harbor small imaginations.

To the devil with false modesty.

Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair

Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.

In the end we always wear out our worries. That’s what Wireman says.