Don’t worry: These ramblings will not be insufferably gloomy…. When at first I proved unable to keep the tone light, Ozzie suggested that I be an unreliable narrator. “It worked for Agatha Christie in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” he said. In that first-person mystery novel, the nice-guy narrator turns out to be the murderer of Roger Ackroyd, a fact he conceals from the reader until the end. Understand, I am not a murderer. I have done nothing evil that I am concealing from you. My unreliability as a narrator has to do largely with the tense of certain verbs…. - Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas

When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! - Lewis Caroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. - My Fair Lady

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original. Whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence about how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. - CS Lewis

A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions. - Kevin Hood

Why do you always write these strong women characters? Because you’re still asking me that question. - Joss Whedon

“The three natures of man. Good, evil, and the man struggling between!... The capacity for good and evil is within every person from birth, I think.” - Ted Dekker

"For any villains we may meet, we haven't any fears;Paramount will protect us, 'cause we're signed for five more years." - Road to Morocco

"Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating." - Emma Coats

"The MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after but the audience don't care.” - Alfred Hitchcock

Two men fought for the sake of a single woman. Though indeed foolish, it was a tale as old as time. - Dies Irae, Interview with Kaziklu Bey

If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep. - Anton Chekhov

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Perfect people are boring. Perfect people are obnoxious because they're better than us. Perfect people are, above all, too good to be true. - Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman