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.

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.

You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas something like Jaws winds up having a huge effect on me. If only my parents had been taking me to Kurosawa films when I was eight, but no.

To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall .... [p.218 ff.]

I always feel it is a shortcoming of mine as a reader and as a writer that I frankly need to like somebody.

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.

The thing you can count on in life is that Tennessee will always be scorching hot in August.