I hardly ever work from a synopsis -- I find they act like chains.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

All is changed, changed utterlyA terrible beauty is born

She has one hell of a dark soul, but damn, it’s so full of light!

In America we have an idolatry called the “adulation of youth.” Apparently distressed by their inability to communicate with the younger generation, many adults simply imitate it.

Satan] invades the Sunday school, the Bible class, and even the pulpit. He even invades the church under cover of an orthodox vocabulary, emptying sacred terms of their biblical sense.

If I turn on the television, am I to believe that that is America? I'm sorry, I don't believe that's America.

A minute goes by so fearfully quick. You might as well try to stop a Bandersnatch!

Reform can be accomplished only when attitudes are changed.

The worst day of my political life was when President George W. Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law.

If I made an album just to sell you a story about how I'm the man, it really doesn't show any human side to me. It's good to talk about what's real and what's relevant.