A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue.

In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories

The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye.

The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur.

Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately.

A lawyer's job is to manipulate the skeletons in other people's closets.

To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.

Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.

A writer writes what other people only think.

Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.

The moment one is born, the ‘saw starts cutting’. People consider it as death only when the wood breaks in two pieces [during funeral]. But it was being cut from the very beginning.

I don’t want forever. I never did… I just want right now.

The heart of a good mother is as big as the ocean

I don't play for records.

A lot of people, quite frankly, think intense attachments to animals are weird and suspect, the domain of people who can't quite handle attachments to humans.

How vital are mother’s influence and teaching in the home-and how apparent when neglected!

Amplified by the still of night, the book opened -- a gust of wind.

The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.

Unlimited efforts can produce unlimited results.

They say the day you lose your parents, you start to look like them.