"I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh."
"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or despair ... Come to it any way but lightly."
"The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor."
"So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want."
"The scariest moment is always just before you start."
"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."