I had no idea that Barack Obama curses before public speaking. I think I know at whom he curses before going on stage. I was as shocked Read More...
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.
It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

























