Writing is self-taught. Consulting other people only teaches you to depend on their reactions, which may or may not be legitimate. Quit looking for approval ... Learn to evaluate your own work with a dispassionate eye ... the lessons you acquire will be all the more valuable because you've mastered your craft from within.

any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply.

It is a truth of human nature that we can ponder life's mysteries for only so long before we lose interest and move on to something else.

Writing isn't about the destination-writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else.

He might be a man without character, but she was a woman without courage. Of the two, which was worse?

I write letters to my right brain all the time. They're just little notes. And right brain, who likes to get little notes from me, will often come through within a day or two.

The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.