You think you're the foreigner here, and I'm the American, and I just look the other way while the President or somebody sends down this and that . . . to torture people with. But nobody asked my permission, okay? Sometimes I feel like I'm a foreigner, too.

Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.

I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.

You know reviewers, they are the wind in their own sails.

A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.

Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.

If the Lord hasn't got a boyfriend lined up for me to marry, that's his business.