I am 5'6' and desperately wish I was taller.

Maybe it's a tired tale, but without an education, you're not going to go anywhere.

I always had a curiosity about Texas. I had a curiosity about small-town life, although, granted, Odessa's not a tiny town.

I think the older you are, the more you're going to cling to the printed word as being sacred.

I like to write with a lot of emotion and a lot of power. Sometimes I overdo it; sometimes my prose is a little bit too purple, and I know that.

I don't have many friends in Philadelphia. I sort of have one. I have the dog and someone else.

Why did I become a writer? Because I grew up in New York City, and there were seven newspapers in New York City, and my family was an inveterate reader of newspapers and I loved holding a paper in my hand. It was something sacred.