You really write the books you want to write. You can't take into consideration anything that anybody has said about you in the past, or what they'll say about you in the future.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

After a while you learn that everything stops.

Our lives are not all interconnected. That theory is a crock. Some people truly do not need to be here.

And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention

The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.

There’s no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me.