"You have to give yourself permission, say to yourself, 'I'm not foolish for wanting this.'  All writers have to fight the same fight.  I have to write 2,000 words today, no matter what.  That's my discipline, and that's me protecting the work."

"The world is really tough on people who want to be writers, and there's precious little support for it."

"In my career, it's built on good books, delivered at regular intervals."

"You've got to go, 'No, I can't come into work on the weekends—[that's] when I work on my novel.' ... People deserve those dreams, and they have to fight for them.  You don't want to be at the end of your life and go, 'I met all the obligations people had for me.'"

"I think it was Stephen King who said you can choose to be an author or a writer, and that's a paraphrase, but the idea makes sense to me.  It's really cool to be an author and swan around, and, you know, people clap, but if you do too much of that, you can't write.  At least, I can't.  And so that's how you can do three books a year, and not go crazy—in fact, feel the happiest and the luckiest you've ever, ever felt."