There are two wrong reactions to a rejection slip: deciding it's a final judgment on your story and/or talent, and deciding it's no judgment on your story and/or talent.

Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings.

Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up.

What characters do must grow out of who they are, and who they are is, in turn, influenced by what you make happen to them.

Characterization is not divorced from plot, not a coat of paint you slap on after the structure of events is already built. Rather characterization is inseparable from plot.

In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

Technology is Darwinian. It spreads. It evolves. It adapts. The most dangerous wipes out the less fit.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

Religious reverence for one's own job, even if the job is worth doing, is a sexual turnoff.

Yes, she believed God loved her. But if this whole fiasco was His idea of love . . .

The sacredness of Christmas: glory to God in the highest holy heavens, peace on earth and goodwill to all people.

Just love others for what they are and not what you want them to be.

Always ask, ‘Do you love me?’ before saying, ‘I love you.

What you don’t understand you cannot treasure.

Ultimately, it's a sense of camaraderie and friendship with local people that is core to my journeys.

All these books are published in Heaven.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

I am a majority of one.

And George Brett. I think most people know that George and I have become pretty good friends over the years.