Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.Art consists of the persistence of memory.

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

When you write a story you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story.

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.

So in that sense, I and my fellow horror writers are absorbing and defusing all your fears and anxieties and insecurities and taking them upon ourselves. We’re sitting in the darkness beyond the flickering warmth of your fire, cackling into our caldrons and spitting out spider webs of words, all the time sucking the sickness from your minds and spewing it out into the night.

Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don't have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

Desnuda a un escritor, señala sus cicatrices y te contará la historia de cada una de ellas, incluyendo las más pequeñas. De las grandes se sacan novelas, no amnesia. Es bueno tener un poco de talento si quieres ser escritor, pero el único requisito auténtico es la habilidad para recordar la historia de cada cicatriz... El arte consiste en la persistencia de cada memoria.