I don't have any of the modern stuff. I don't have e-mail. I don't have a computer!

I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.

What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

Using adverbs is a mortal sin.

At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.

Try not to write the parts that people skip.

All the information you need can be given in dialogue.

I believe that I can teach my children to follow their dreams by following my own.

When haters start to rear their ugly head, just play around with them and throw them a bone so they can go away and chew on it.

And not one person would notice the grey parts of her until it was too late, because everyone falls for a pretty face.

Speaking is what most people work on. They forget the thinking and the breathing and instead try to occupy space with sound.

I went to college at the University of Kansas, where I got a degree in political science.

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

I also was a huge 'Dukes of Hazzard' fan. I used to have T-shirts that said 'Dierks of Hazzard' custom-made.

How can you be alienated without first having been connected?

A show is going to be good and fun to work on, if the research is interesting.

All of us... when we think we are talking most intimately to someone else, are actually addressing an image we have of the person to whom we believe we speak.