Writing is so wrapped up in ego, but with math one is just trying to get it right, although you're often wrong. I think math helped me become a good critic of myself, come at writing a little less personally.

A Life in Men is a joyful, ambitious novel that is also an adventure traversing three continents, as well as a meditation on love, sex, and, most important, friendship, which can overcome time, distance, and even death.

I love investigating the natural world, and I find a lot of truths there, truths about survival and beauty - nature continually surprises me (amazing how clever a woodchuck is, amazing how plants roots can break up concrete, amazing how delicious the thimbleberry is!).

I'm of the people in the bar and the people in my stories. They are my tribe.

Where I live you're not supposed to shoot a firearm within a quarter mile of a dwelling.

I was unhappy and I couldn't figure out what was the matter. And he told me to go take a writing course. And I didn't even know that one could learn to write in writing courses.

That was a mistake, I guess, going out to California. They have these things called guidance counselors in high school. They drink a lot of herbal tea.