He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.

Point of view is not something I consciously decide. Almost always, when I come up with a plot I find that the point of view has automatically arrived with it, part and parcel of the story.

Farmers are patient men. They got to be. Got to see those seeds come up week by week, fraction by fraction, and sweat it out for some days not knowing yet is it weeds or vegetables.

My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

People always talked about a mother's uncanny ability to read her children, but that was nothing compared to how children could read their mothers.

I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows