“It is astonishing how few stories have been told perfectly.”

“And yet--we wonder.What if how we are told it happened is not how it happened? What if the story we have been told is just that? A story. Not the truth.”

“In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.”

“Thus I rediscovered what writers have always known (and have told us again and again): books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told.”

“It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true.”

“(Jack London)“He was an adventurer and a man of action as few writers have ever been . . . the excellence of his short stories has been almost forgotten.”