Fiction writing is an act of imagination, lived experience is secondary in many ways, writing a novel really is all about inventing worlds and people.

One thing I am learning is to slow down. Multitasking is great, but I when try to do everything at warp speed I just end up with typos and stress.

I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days, I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am awed at how rain is made.

I think that if you just write your characters you end up with something that people can access.

Half of what's wrong with people today is that they ain't got no place to go that makes them peaceful.

One of the things that writers worry about is finding a voice. I don't think it's a thing that you find so much as it is something that comes to you, or that presents itself.

Voice isn't fixed or unmalleable, it adapts to the characters you are creating and the story being told. I suppose in some way that's true in life - a little flexibility goes a long way.

Even if you don't feel like sitting down to write or working on that big proposal, or whatever it is, just show up anyhow and the rest will follow.

I've been writing all my life. Even though I didn't have sort of careerist aspirations as a writer, it was very much my identity.

All of us, writers and non-writers alike, have incredible well-springs of personal experience and history. And we also have imagination - which I think is a kind of human miracle.

The correlations between real life experience and the storylines in novels are never as direct or simple as they might seem.

I don't know what happened to me, " he said, shaking his head. "I honestly don't." ... "You grew up, Alex.

Happiness is there when you are in love with what you are doing.

What the proponents of prostitution conveniently ignore is that lack of opportunity is lack of choice.

I'm not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it, I don't know when I lost it, I don't really think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job...and I don't want it!

We are each responsible for all of our experiences.

I saw a cavalry captain buy vegetable soup on horseback. He carried the whole mess home in his helmet.

In a Town like Twin Peaks noone is innocent

Only in situations where competition is illegal will competition not act naturally to bring the best product at the lowest price to the consumer.

It's time to get your head out of the dumps and your legs in the air!