To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

A cavalryman's horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be alowed to know this.

The last element in drama is high stakes. War, of course, is life and death - survival, not only for the story's characters, but often for the society itself. That's why I'm drawn to stories that are built around wars, even if they're not technically "war stories."

Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.

Start before you’re ready. Good things happen when we start before we’re ready.