I got halfway through 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' I don't get it at all. What's the big thrill? It's boring.

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 let my love for all flow through art, and I express how I feel.

The greatest loss is the loss of life.

I am nothing but an imperfect being, who is residing on earth with a perfect God as my guidance and protection.

I was born in the Midwest, where "salad" was cherry Jell-O with bananas in it. Now children are more aware of healthy foods.

The difference between PR and social media is that PR is about positioning, and social media is about becoming, being and improving.

The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult.

Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.

Human sacrifice is much in vogue right now. The Republican right thinks that people who get on its nerves, especially women, should be sent to the stake. . .

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.

Never let a little man to sit on a big chair; that would be a big disaster!