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.
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.
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.
Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.



























