Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling. ― Po Bronson

Writing the opening lines of a story is a bit like starting to ski at the steepest part of the hill. You must have all your skills under control from the first instant. - Marion Dane Bauer

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten. - Rudyard Kipling

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. - C.S. Lewis

A lone protagonist never receives as great a reaction as one with a well-developed supporting cast. - Susan Spann

Bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street. - Stephen King

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. - Nicholas Sparks

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions. - Agatha Christie

May the odds be ever in your favor. - Suzanne Collins

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - H.P. Lovecraft

Though in this genre we write about the fantastic, the stories work best when there is solid grounding in our world. - Brandon Sanderson