"No one cares more about a writer's career than that writer.  You cede authority to other people at your own peril."

"No one on earth is going to care more about your career than you.  Not your agent, not your publisher, not friends in the industry.  At the end of the day, you need to take responsibility for your career."

"Put on your business hat and your writing hat.  You have to have both these days." (artist)

"There is sort of some type of structure even though you're flying by the seat of your pants with duct tape and spit.  I always have an idea of where I'd like the story to go, where I think I might end up, though that could change.  It depends on you exercising your full imagination.  Daydreaming a lot.  Sensing what possibilities are out there.  Not being afraid to change your mind on something." (artist)

"You have to retain a sense of childlike wonder."

"I've always maintained that no publisher should make more money off of a book than the writer does.  They publish thousands of books a year—but this is the only one (or two) I'm going to do.  This also applies to the Amazons of the world.  We the writers should be king of the hill because we provide the content."

"You need to be your best advocate.  You need to understand the financial side of the business, because if you don't, then you by default are going to be taken advantage of by people who do pay attention to those details."

"You're never going to make a living selling short stories."

"How could I outline the guy?  I had no idea who he was.  I had to get on the page and kind of feel around and talk to him and see what he could do." (on outlining vs. not and writing his main character)

"People ask: 'Would you ever write with someone else?' and my standard response, and it's true, is that I do not play well with others.  For me to have somebody come in and I give them an idea and they write the story—that takes all the fun out of it.  I want to be the one seeing it through."

"As a writer, it's like you're a fighter in the ring.  You have to bob and weave and juke and move and change direction and tactics all the time based on what your instincts are telling you about what's happening on the page."

"Writing, for me, isn't a job; it's a lifestyle.  So I treat it like that.  I'm not always at the office, but I'm never done."

"Breaks give your mind a chance to refresh.  I write multiple books at once, and I'm always thinking about them, even if I'm not at a computer.  It's a habit I picked up as a litigator: You have 1,000 facts in your head, and the most important thing isn't that you know them all- it's that you crystallize them, so that you can present them clearly.  Epiphanies don't occur like a spark; they're actually ideas that have been floating around in your brain for a while.  By the time I sit down to write, my thoughts are well organized and come out cleanly."

"Many writers set daily goals—write this many words or pages, or for this many hours.  I don't.  If you set the goal at 1,000 words, some days you're going to write 1,000 words of crap.  And some days you have only one good word in you.  So you should write that word, and then go play golf.  Or, like I do, work on another project."