Young marrieds don’t get much mail; everyone but the gas and electric companies seems to forget they are alive. I snagged it, praying it wouldn’t turn out to be another bill.

Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful.

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.

Still, I believe the first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season. 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 during a period of severe sunspot

The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning.

At one moment I had none of this; at the next I had all of it. If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects. I have heard it called “thinking above the curve,” and it’s that; I’ve heard it called “the over-logic,” and it’s that, too.

Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence.

came through all the stuff I told you about (and plenty more that I didn’t), and now I’m going to tell you as much as I can about the job. As promised, it won’t take long. It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system

Child, Lee: The Jack Reacher novels, starting with Killing Floor