“Never trust anything a fiction writer says about himself.”

“Sometimes life coughs up coincidences no writer of fiction would dare copy.”

“Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad.”

“Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.”

“As a young man just beginning to publish some short fiction in the t&a magazines, I was fairly optimistic about my chances of getting published; I knew that I had some game, as the basketball players say these days, and I also felt that time was on my side; sooner or later the best-selling writers of the sixties and seventies would either die or go senile, making room for newcomers like me.”

“I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.”

“Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up”