“It was 911 calling me. If you can believe it. Them calling me.”

“It's unexpectedly painful to have become a pronoun.”

“Make your skin as thick as you are able to, for your career. Keep it as thin as you can tolerate, for your art.”

“Do whatever you have to do, avoid whatever you need to avoid, protect yourself however you need to protect yourself in order to stay on course, write, send the work out, write more, send out more w...”

“You cannot write the pages you love without writing the pages you hate. Nothing that you write is pointless, useless, or unnecessary. The product requires the process. The good days may be more enj...”

“Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons i...”

“This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' ...”

“Where there is contempt/scornful rejection and slander, there wealth will not remain.”

“Almost more than talent you need tenacity, and an infinite capacity for rejection, if you are to succeed.”

“To write is to stand at the edge of a bottomless well, unafraid of falling in.”

“But when I say it isn't meant for anyone's eyes, I don't mean it in the sense of one of those novel manuscripts people keep in a drawer, insisting they don't care if anyone else ever reads it or no...”

“So here I am writing my zombie story and my lead character decides to betray me.”