"Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."

"Revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done."

"One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones."

"I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life's essential absurdity."

"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries."