I approach poetry and spirituality like literary nitroglycerin -- a little can do a lot and you better damn well be careful with it.

A writer, like a sheriff, is the embodiment of a group of people and without their support both are in a tight spot.

The problem with anger is that once it burns out, you're left with empty tanks.

Writing is a solitary pursuit and I think you have to be partially at peace with yourself, but it's the other part that's usually producing the stuff worth reading.

If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.

The place was packed as we flooded in, all the patrons freezing at the sight of an armed sheriff, two deputies, an Indian, and a construction worker; we probably looked like the Village People.

It was the second time that day that I stood looking at a space where a large thing wasn't where it was supposed to be.