The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage.

I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary.

If my setting is new to a reader, or the concerns of the novel are new, I hope they will learn something about the world. I would like to say that they can trust that what they do learn in the novel will be accurate, because I pay a lot of attention to facts. I do a lot of research to make sure that I'm not giving them, you know, blue moons of Jupiter. It's not science fiction.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission?

Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.