The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.

Your Plan and the stuff that comes out of my asshole bear a suspicious resemblance to each other.

If God rewards us on earth for good deeds—the Old Testament suggests it’s so, and the Puritans certainly believed it—then maybe Satan rewards us for evil ones.

Good luck is just bad luck with its hair combed.

Cut him. Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story.