I feel that writers think with their noses to the ground, and the dark stuff kind of comes to me more, even though I really am sort of an upbeat guy. It's an honest descent into darkness. And you can't have the joy without the grief - it's why we listen to Mozart's 'Requiem.'

What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?

I'm one of those writers who can't talk about what they're working on. The entire four years I was writing 'House of Sand and Fog,' my wife never saw a word of it. I just have to keep it in the womb, and then everyone can have a crack at it.

I see a lot of marriages crash and burn around me and my wife. I've always been curious about how hard it is to love well and be loved.

I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, it's self-consciousness.

Don't quit. It's very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it's very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can't get fired if you don't write, and most of the time you don't get rewarded if you do. But don't quit.

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.