If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.

We have this huge discourse on family in this country, but no one deconstructs it the same way. People talk about "the American family." The right wing has this thing - Focus on the Family. What the hell is that? I don't want to just discuss the issues - I want family to be a real part of the character of the novels I write, and I don't like to write things that feel like issue books.

I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.

I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.