Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent.

Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings.

Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up.

What characters do must grow out of who they are, and who they are is, in turn, influenced by what you make happen to them.

Characterization is not divorced from plot, not a coat of paint you slap on after the structure of events is already built. Rather characterization is inseparable from plot.

There are two wrong reactions to a rejection slip: deciding it's a final judgment on your story and/or talent, and deciding it's no judgment on your story and/or talent.

In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

Technology is Darwinian. It spreads. It evolves. It adapts. The most dangerous wipes out the less fit.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

Learning to code is useful no matter what your career ambitions are.

I feel that I am doing the minimum amount of damage to other possibilities that may take place in a reader's head.

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

And thirdly, the FDA occasionally does some genuine public good with whatever energies it has left over after serving the vested political and commercial interest of its first two activities.

I always think of my sins when I weed. They grow apace in the same way and are harder still to get rid of.

The first sip [of tea] is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.

I grew up riding when I was younger in Texas. I actually learned how to ride in Norway. I really love riding horses.

You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.

Moms and daughters can negotiate over anything, and they can go on longer than it took to settle the Vietnam War.