I like to invent the dialogue that I want to have heard.

Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.

Boring people don't know they're boring. That's the problem with boring people.

I'm trying always to leave out what I think is extraneous. And to find what I think is the most wonderful language to make a beautiful sentence.

I think it's true that unless human beings experience something, they simply don't understand what people are going through.

I'm the author of my own misery.

I don't think anybody says to Coetzee or Dostoyevsky or Kafka, "Your characters aren't likeable." It's not about your character winning a popularity contest. That's not the writer's job.

It's not the writer who determines how good she is anyway. Writers don't determine that. It's readers who determine that.

Do the obvious, you won't forget it. Do the obvious, you won't regret it. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.

Without curiosity a writer is dead.

You are very kind, " he said. "Very wrong, but very kind.

True...I hear voices in my head keep talking to me. The good thing for now is...I never answer them back.

I think music is another language.

Better not to start down a wrong path at all than head down it in the hope of making a detour when something better came along.

So much of literary sci-fi is about creating worlds that are rich and detailed and make sense at a social level. We'll create a world for people and then later present a narrative in that world.

Rest. Heal. Sleep. I shall most likely kill you on the morrow.” “You? A Princess Bride quote?” I croaked. “What is that?” she asked.

I have a pretty easy life.

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

Grace cannot forgive unconfessed sin.

A lot of my favorite artists are fashion icons.