“I learnt that I must never finish a book with nothing else to do.”

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.

It’s where I keep all my things. Get a lot of compliments on this.

Hitting the gym to release stress is not nearly as effective as hitting the people that cause the stress to begin with.

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

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.

Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.

In jail I was just like everybody else, I was sitting there praying, feeling caged.

Cameras are a lifesaver for very shy people who have nowhere else to hide. Behind a lens they can disguise the fact that they have nothing to say to strangers.

Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.

America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.

Anyone else has to come upstairs and see the Shogun. I’m still the Shogun.