The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.

In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.

I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.

Because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.

Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it's really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on.

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.

That is one thing I've learned, that it is possible to really understand things at certain points, and not be able to retain them, to be in utter confusion just a short while later. I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try to call on it, just like a lightbulb cracking off when you throw the switch.