If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

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

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.

I am a totally public person.

Anytime you write about priests or cops, they're hot-button professions.

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.

Happiness compresses time, makes it dense and bright, pocketsized.