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.

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.

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

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

To write is human, to edit is divine.

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

Any subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory.

Understanding the world is a door to believing what we are, where we are living in and what we expect to come out of our actions.

The key to genius is knowing how to make connections.

Sometimes I wish that I could go into a time machine right now and just look at my self and say, 'Calm down. Things are gonna be fine. Things are gonna be all great. Just relax.'

You can buy a good pasta but when you cook it yourself it has another feeling.

Because as much as the world loves you one minute, it can be way down on you the next.

There is no happiness that isn't earned

You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly! Ha, ha!

Sit with those who constantly repent, for they have the softest hearts.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.