Between the lines of every book the writer reveals their own secrets.

When you lose yourself in a book the hours grow wings and fly.

Writers strive for the impossible: perfection. Even the universe is flawed.

Characters begin as your children and become your teachers.

Books have a life. They breathe. When you write a book, it grows and changes. You learn from your characters after you create them. They come from you and you become them.

Write what you want to write. That's the only advice a writer will ever need.

Writing is like a religion to those who don't practise, an act of faith for those who do.

Who knows why we do it? And when we've done it, nobody wants it. Still we keep doing it. That's what makes a writer a writer.

Perfection is not something you strive for. Perfection is in the eyes of the beholder. Perfection is a state of grace, of peace of serenity, a moment as fleeting as a smile.

The only prophecy the artist can make with confidence is that he and his message will be misunderstood by a world that values all the wrong things.

I'm my characters' galley slave.

Life is for a specific mission. Find your role and fulfill it.

I was still too much of a fledgling with people to understand that, in the long run, nobody is a picnic and that I was no picnic myself.

All of the factors that make up a quality city - safe streets, high paying jobs, strong neighborhoods, etc. - emanate from a strong educational premise.

Ironically, since Obama was elected, for the first time in my life I'm sometimes not proud of my country.

So scary watching the news...Like Iraq...could ever under any stretch of the imagination be any threat to us whatsoever.

In France I'm very private, I don't like talking about my life, and I imagined that people would think that I'm now an open book.

No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.

I'm not great about putting on make-up, I look like a wreck half the time.

Power is a drug on which the politicians are hooked. They buy it from the voters, using the voters' own money.

I do my very best to not allow external trends or zeitgeists to feed into what I'm producing.