“Rereading parts of your novel while writing is like doubling back at rerunning parts of a marathon midrace.”

“When your novel first peeks its head into the world, it will look pretty much like every newborn: blotchy, hairless, and utterly confused.”

“If you have a million things to do, adding item number 1,000,001 is not such a big deal. When, on the other hand, you have nothing to do, getting out of bed and washing yourself before 2:00 P.M. fe...”

“Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make the...”

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

“A culture of unaccountability is a culture without incentive, and a culture without incentive is the death of critical and creative thinking.”

“I was cranked to a fifth gear, and everything I did, I did on a deadline.”

“The only deadline that concerns me is the day that I die and whether or not I had loved enough while I was here.”

“I don't need time, I need a deadline.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”