Novels are usually built on conflict, sometimes very, very difficult conflict. It's why men write war novels - because there you go, there's the conflict writ large.

Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.

Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning.

I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes.

Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.

If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail.