All good plots come from well-orchestrated characters pitted against one another in a conflict of wills.

To set a forest on fire, you light a match. To set a character on fire, you put him in conflict.

It is possible to combine a story line and plot line in the same work. Usually the storylines comes first, serving as a background to the plot line, but not always.

When characters have different goals and are intent on achieving them, conflict results. If the stakes are high and both sides are unyielding, you have the makings of high drama.

You will never work through writer's block if you walk away from your typewriter. That will only make it easier to walk away the next time.

For some it is harder to write a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.

The opposing missions of the various characters create the plot.

For some it is harder towrite a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.

I'm married, I'm monogamous, but I'm not dead, and Bill isn't either.

When I go, if there's a tombstone it will say, She doesn't give in. She doesn't give up. And she never takes no for an answer.

Saw that I could make more money in one pot than what was in that entire paycheck selling a week of office supplies

There are angels near you to guide you and protect you, if you would but invoke them. It is not later than we think, it is a bigger world than we think.

I began coming to Paris in the 1960s when I was told audiences here liked my work. More than 20 of my plays have been produced in Paris, and several have had long runs and have returned in revivals.

I thought about starting a novella club because it seemed less ambitious.

To separate man and woman at school, at work, at meetings, in short, to separate them at life, is the affair of perverted and fusty minds! Where there is separation, there is excessive primitiveness!

The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.

I would love to do a rom-com, but they are not good - good and successful doesn't equate to the same thing.