The only thing worth thinking about, when I write a story, is whether I like it, whether I want to write it, whether it excites me.

Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.

What writers do - everything comes from inside, from experiences of the world that we have digested. And then we turn it into silk, or stories.

If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.

I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it.

The appeal of writing a romance was that I'd never written one before the The Thorn and The Blossom.

I loved writing something I'd never written before, and I wanted to write not just about "true love" but also a human relationship.

I actually pushed the boundaries on how long a book like this [The Thorn and the Blossom] can be. The original plan called for two 7,500 word stories, and I turned in two 10,000 word stories.

I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.

It's appropriate to have magic in a love story, because magic is a sort of metaphor for what love feels like? When we fall in love, the world feels magical to us. It becomes an enchanted place.

I see so many talented writers who have difficulties with that. And if you don't believe it's important, you won't put in the work you need to.

You used to be the best to make life be real to me, and I hope that you're still out there and you're like you used to be

He has a 5 year plan... What is it, don't die?

He's smaller than me, did you see him? He looked like a noodle next to me.

Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.

I think Barack Obama's foreign policy will be regarded more failure than success.

Most of my jokes are racist - usually about the Irish.

The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.

Before I was nine years old, I had been a socialist. When young, everyone is a socialist; later he becomes cleverer.

The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.

The essential thing is to etch movements in the sky, movements so still they leave no trace. The essential thing is simplicity. / That is why the long path to perfection is horizontal.