115 Quotes by Stephen Graham Jones

Angels, demons, sex. Heaven, hell, war. Blood and royalty, history and magic, fire and ice. And a story you cannot put down. This is fantasy at its best.

Craft can get you through ninety percent of a piece, but it’s art that carries you at the end.

Writing, of course, it’s not all in your head. Not talking about the ‘manual’ act of typing here either, but that, when your fiction’s really working, your whole body’s involved, and then some.

The stories I respect most aren’t those with the rich, dense prose, but those which achieve a rich, deep effect with simple little nothing-sentences, lines I won’t possibly remember, because they simply functioned, didn’t draw attention to themselves, were properly humble.

Life’s so much easier when you’re not always maintaining two worlds: the one formed of lies, which feels real, and the one you live in, which often feels like lies. So easy to get them confused.

It’s important to look ahead, I think, to shape your stuff for – again – effect. Because it’s just so easy to write long, flowy sentences, get lost in them. The hard part’s making them matter, making yourself make them matter.

Football’s another sport I absolutely despise. Along with baseball. Really, for me, basketball’s the only real sport, the only one that matters.

The truth is, poverty’s the environment for alcoholism, and the reservations aren’t rich. Maybe cleaning people up in fiction is just as dangerous as presenting them unfiltered.

Stupid girls run upstairs, stupid girls run upstairs,” she’s saying to herself, turning to pull Ben with her up the aluminum steps, Billie Jean just feet behind them.