I grew up with donkeys, as well as horses, but I'm more interested in donkeys.

Some people tell me they would be afraid of my characters, but I tell those people [that] they meet these characters all the time. They just don't care about them when they meet them, at the gas station, the car wash, the post office even.

I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I've been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I've been pretty lucky.

The truth is I tried to write for years and I wasn't very good.

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.

Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty.

I enjoy shooting. Around where I live, it's something you do for entertainment once in a while, you go out and shoot targets.