When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They accept death with a grace that I hope I will one day be brave enough to muster.

He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas. Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve. He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves-and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big.

There's sometimes a weird benefit to having an alcoholic, violent father. He really motivated me in that I never wanted to be anything like him.

I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental.

But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.

Shakespeare again. Once you let him into your head, he takes up tenancy and will not leave.

Fate isn’t one straight road…there are forks in it, many different routes to different ends. We have the free will to choose the path.