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.

I am not mature enough as a reader to enjoy a book in which I hate all the people.

I will go and speak at rotary clubs. I will go and speak at schools. I'm so much in the community, but in a way that I love. It's been such a positive thing.

I saw that my best work was my most personal work, which is odd, because my fiction is very far afield and has nothing to do with my life.

Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.

Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?