The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can’t be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth.

... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.

Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.

I loathe crowds. I especially dont like cities. A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.

My background is deep and set in deep time, and in a narrow space, oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.

My great-grandfather was a self-taught man, and his library was extraordinary. I read the lot.