He didn't like very many people any more, or very many things either. He preferred not to be this way, but there it was, he was like that. His cynicism, a veteran's cynicism, was a thing that disturbed him all the time.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

He decided then that he would love her forever no matter what came to pass. It was not so much a matter of deciding as accepting the inevitability of it. It made him feel better, though he felt perturbed, too, worried that this kiss was wrong. But from his point of view, at fourteen years old, their love was entirely unavoidable. It had started on the day they'd clung to his glass box and kissed in the sea, and now it must go on forever. He felt certain of this.

I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave.

Don Quixote is one that comes to mind in comparison to mine, in that they both involve journeys undertaken by older men. That is unusual, because generally the hero of a journey story is very young.

The best advice on writing I've ever received is to take it seriously, because to do it well is all-consuming.

That the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty