And if you believe that we really have free will, then you know that God can't really control us. And since God can't control us, all God does is watch and change channels when He gets bored.

I have a secret goal with my editor - he has asthma and uses his inhaler, and after I send him a new manuscript, I'll have his assistant phone me and tell me how many times he had to get his inhaler out while reading a draft. It's my secret laugh meter.

The world of American politics is more contentious than it has ever been in my lifetime.

In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rock feller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighways.

My life has been about living like a monk and looking like a priest so that people will come up to me and tell me their most appalling stories. They have to make their confession to somebody, and it might as well be me.

Each wedding picture was less of a memento than a scar. Proof of some horror movie scenario Katherine Kenton has survived.

There's a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me.