You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

Also minimalism is a term that all of us who share so little in common and who are lumped together as minimalists are not terribly happy with.

You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story.

Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.

Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.