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.

Religious reverence for one's own job, even if the job is worth doing, is a sexual turnoff.

It is a long lane that has no turning.

Pain is weakness leaving your body.

What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.

If people are constantly reading about you, and you're overexposed, they've got no reason to go see your movies. Also, it's not pleasant or nice to have your privacy invaded.

I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don't belong here. (277)

People will turn to you, follow you, support you only as long as they are confident that you are doing your best.

With all my capacity I encourage you to discover who you really are. . . . I urge you to discern through the Spirit your divinely given capacities.

If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless.

Donald Trump doesn't believe that the Constitution is a suicide pact.