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

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.

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.

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.

Let him then have powers commensurate with his utmost possible need, only let him be held strictly responsible for the exercise of them. Any other course would be injustice as well as bad policy

Does drinking make you wittier? One might as well ask if witting makes you drinkier, which it may.

G is Grace, the Flaming Star is the Torch of Reason. Those who possess this knowledge are indeed Illuminati.

I play a man who is obsessed with his own beauty, so it's perfect casting.

You can be happy if you know this secret: Some things are within your power to control and some things are not.

Non cogitant, ergo non sunt.

As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.

To be honest, when I can feel that a lot of people are watching me, I get a little scared, but at the same time, it inspires me.

I think women can be just as sexist. Women can be misogynistic, too - more so, they have more freedom to do it.

Trust is a fragile thing - difficult to build, easy to break. It cannot be bargained for. Only if it is freely given it can be expected in return