“If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.”

When a monkey nibbles on a weenis, it’s funny in any language.

A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.

The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone.

I was more inclined to think of it as “writer’s impatience”, and to follow Arthur Koestler’s dictum: “Soak; and wait.

When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside.

She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls.

I wish Monkeys could Skype. Maybe one day.

You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.

Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.

Everything I have ever written has been in the same chair, in the same room.

Ive learned never to try and force words to come.

… I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of “writer’s block”.

It isn’t like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there’s a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.

My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.

My attitude is that if anybody of any age wants to read a book, let them, but I do think that no child would want to read Boneland.

At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.

You’re safer in the race car than you are in cars going to and from the track.

You don’t stand around arguing about who’s responsible, or who’s going to pay.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

If the rules aren’t going to protect the integrity of the game, then they’re wrong.

God knows what’s best for us, though, so there’s no need to worry when things don’t go how we originally wanted them to go.

Everybody from the Big Ten is going to play the ACC. Everybody from the Big East is going to play the Pac-10.

All an agent is going to do is buy things for a player, damage his eligibility, and make the player dependent on them.

The second Saturday in September, we’re going to have conference day. Everybody from the SEC plays a Big 12 team.