We'll just have to get along. That's what people do, you know? They just get along. And try to help each other.

I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami.

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

I don't make movies. I don't feel that I have to have artistic control. Part of this comes from the fact that the book lives on no matter what Hollywood does to your novel in terms of a film. Now, you try to be careful who you allow to do your film because nobody wants their novel to become a turkey movie. But, on the other hand, it is a crapshot anyway, because even the best people can make a bad film.

The worst advice? 'Don't listen to the critics.' I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they're telling you something is broken that you can fix.

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