Go find your joy. It's what you're going to remember in the end.
To those of you who seek lost objects of history, I wish you the best of luck. They're out there, and they're whispering.
I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis. . . Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.
Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off.
To create something you want to sell, you first study and research the market, then you develop the product to the best of your ability.
I must say one thing about southern down-home brewed coffee with chicory. If you have worms, you'll never have them again.
My friends joke that I raised the Titanic and never left the Rockies.
If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees.
I idolized Superman when I was younger. I thought he and I had a lot in common. He was always going into phonebooths and taking off all his clothes.
You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
We keep asking for answers; God keeps sending us people.