“Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it.”

“remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.”

“What I'd show you is much more bizarre than anything we have looked at so far, and I warn you in advance that the first impulse will be to laugh. That's all right. Laugh if you must. Just don't take your eye off what you see, for even in your imagination, here is a creature who can do you damage.”

“If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

“It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life.”

“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

“The sign painter had guts, maybe. Good taste, no. Anyone with a taste for chocolate Paydays had been spending too much time in the sun. We've stumbled on another find, I believe, Sergeant. Inspector, I stand amazed- your deductive acumen is exceeded only by your good looks and the extraordinary length of your reproductive organ.”