The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.

Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.

To write is human, to edit is divine.

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

Fear is an insidious and deadly thing. It can warp judgment, freeze reflexes, breed mistakes. Worse, it's contagious.

Uplift your soul with music.

Effie Seabright, we’ve been fated to meet you for a long time.

I don't care a damn for your loyal service when you think I am right when I really want it most is when you think I am wrong.

It's not the kind of tuna that I eat.

Fleetwood Mac are more like a folk-rock band.

Perhaps he was a bit different from other people, but what really sympathetic person is not a little mad?

Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of [Muslim] rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.

My walk is consistently made fun of.

Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'