When you have children, you're obligated to live.

I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at

I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life.

Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.

I wonder how many times we dream that kind of dream-something strange and illogical-and fail to realize God is trying to tell us something.

But I don't think people take bad advice. They've got intuition too, you know. In fact I'd be surprised if they take any advice at all.

I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.