Storytelling is the art of unfolding knowledge in a way that makes each piece contribute to a larger truth.

Voice really depends on the answer to the question, Who is telling this story? . . . That will color your diction-and determine your metaphors, your sensibility.

You have to roll up your sleeves and be a stonecutter before you can become a sculptor - command of craft always precedes art: apprentice, journeyman, master.

The simplest tool of the writer is repetition. . . . The simplest tool of the writer is repetition.

You will not read voice on the page; you will hear it in your head.

It's not enough simply to record the way people actually talk. The dialogue must be concentrated, shaped, dramatically moving, in a way that real-life conversation seldom is.

We create an interior 'movie' in the reader's head through words on the page.

For the big stuff to work credibly, you've got to get the little stuff absolutely right.

The only way to write a novel is to proceed as if you had all the time in the world.

It takes some strength to fight. It takes greater strength to choose not to fight.

Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That's why fear should be unknown to us.

Peace begins in the mind with a simple thought of love and kindness for all.

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune but great minds rise above it.

Intellectualism came very late to America. That's why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday.

If a community values its children, it must cherish its mothers.

Hold'em is to stud what chess is to checkers.

When a man says he likes a woman in a skirt, I tell him to try one.

I feel like women very often do write differently than men, but women write things that men can't write.

I do believe that almost everything I do is based on my feelings, not on my intellect. Though But we won't chase ourselves up the particular sentiment, or we'll get lost.