Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.

...Do you see things in black and white, or are there shades of gray for you?" "I hope there's gray...Black and white make things easier, but only if you don't want to think.

A horsefly can't do a horse much real damage, but it can drive it wild anyhow.

You can write better about a place you've seen for yourself. You don't have to have been there - I've sure written about places I've never seen - but it does help.

Many things are possible. Few things are certain.

I learned by reading an awful lot and by writing a half a million words of stuff nobody would do anything with except wrap old fish.

I'm a social caterpillar. I am not a social butterfly

I do first draft in longhand, which saves a lot of rewriting. I try to get a certain amount done each day. Don't always, but I try. Then I clean up in the rewrites.

People you don't like are pigheaded. Your friends are stubborn, or hold to their purpose.

You count snouts,” Straha said. “Whichever side can persuade most snouts to join it prevails. It does not have to be clever. It does not have to be wise. It only needs to be popular.

People were as they were, not not as he wished them to be.

A consultant: someone brought in to build a one-handled wheelbarrow.

If you can't give people a piece of your mind, they probably don't deserve the whole of your heart.

I have tried to fight the impulse, the attraction, but my defenses crumble every time I see him. Since my divorce from Hank I'm practically love-starved.

Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.

[On Nijinksy:] Ah, he took my breath away! The body that man had, the controlled power, the iron fragility. He was a note of music. He was dance!

It was a labor of love and they did really well.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene.

Do not have regrets. Guilt is a wasted emotion.

If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters.

It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.