When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

And didn't they say that, although curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought the beast back?

Relief loosens tongues beyond measure.

She is a cat with a burning tail, an ant under a microscope, a fly about to lose its wings to the curious plucking fingers of a third-grader on a rainy day, a game for bored children with no bodies and the whole universe at their feet.

A writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around.

We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it's too late.

I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy.