I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.

What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

Using adverbs is a mortal sin.

At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.

Try not to write the parts that people skip.

All the information you need can be given in dialogue.

Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.

My dad always taught me to never be satisfied, to want more and know that what is done is done.

I like California but I'm dyed-in-the-wool Oklahoma. I see a deer in L.A., and everybody's standing around it taking pictures. Back home, that's the enemy!

Music and art are two very different activities for me. However, the use of imagery links them, and invention is important for both.

There is a point at which methods devour themselves.

If I think of all those homosexuals in Germany today, I think I'd hand my German passport back, if I had one.

You become who you pretend to be.

That's what you get for telling the truth. Someone calls you a liar. Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.

During the downtime on tour, I simply walk from room to room, staring into my computer.

Violence can behave like a disease. That insight gives a different frame of reference that is designed to take the judgment out of it, to take the good-versus-bad-people view out of it.

I don’t think you’re aloud to be homeschooled if you don’t have a home.