The flow of writing is always a surprise and a challenge. Click the computer on and I am 17 again, wanting to write and not knowing if I can.

People understand contests. You take a bunch of kids throwing rocks at random and people look askance, but if you go and hold a rock-throwing contest - people understand that.

Process can not be inferred from product any more than a pig can be inferred from a sausage.

I write every day for two hours. But it's what I do for the other twenty-two hours that allows me to write.

My ignorance is essential. I do not write what I know but what I need to know.

Death always wins.

Tradition is a fragile thing in a culture built entirely on the memories of the elders.

May we never let the things we can't have or don't have spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have.

No one ever tells us the truth, even those we love.

Getting people to think about what they think, and asking them questions about it, is the best way I know how to teach.

...to speak of them out loud, to speak of their hunger and pain and loneliness and humour, to make them visible so that can not be ravaged in the dark without great consequence.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

I'd lean more toward werewolves. Wolves are cool.

Self-censorship, whether known or unknown, is an unwelcome brake on creativity; it stifles self-expression and hence prevents a work from reaching the heights of great art.

Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier.