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 think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

It is said the sesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.

Maybe there would be a bad outcome for some of the others, but no one was going to shoot a soprano.

Guns are dangerous and damaging even when no one gets shot. They really do loom.

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