The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night or when I'm driving to the grocery store are the one's I wind up writing about.

Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

I certainly have written a lot about police in my life, and it's not only something that I know about, but always something that interests me.

There are, of course, people who didn't create the trouble they're in, but lots of them do.

She sang as if she was saving the life of every person in the room.

Do you want to do this thing? Sit down and do it. Are you not writing? Keep sitting there. Does it not feel right? Keep sitting there. Think of yourself as a monk walking the path to enlightenment. Think of yourself as a high school senior wanting to be a neurosurgeon. Is it possible? Yes. Is there some shortcut? Not one I've found. Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

When you get divorced and remarried, nobody gets discarded. Everybody is still there. Even if their storyline is not directly yours.