I suppose I was a little bit of what would be called today a nerd. I didn't have girlfriends, and really I wasn't a very social boy.

Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people.... We are a nation rich in rivers.

It takes an earthquake to remind us that we walk on the crust of an unfinished planet.

I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

I didn't know what narcissism was until I beheld my own naricssus.

I made friends with a lot of those who could have criticized me in print and who didn't, who praised me instead.