After a year, it was great to get out of L.A. and return to Hyde Park. Since my grandparents lived in Hyde Park, I had been coming there since I was a tyke.

Eighty percent of all novels are bought by women, or so I've heard.

I was never a big reader as a kid. My imagination wasn't captured by books very often. It was captured more often by boys and partying and riding horses.

A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you're finished, it's really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.

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

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.

I think back when I was kind of a crappy writer, I really did know my time was better spent working and having adventures and seeing the world.