Funny, how one good cookie could calm the mind and even elevate a troubled soul.

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

We have a responsibility to stand watch over one another, we are watchers, all of us, watchers, guarding against the darkness.

Guilt is a tireless horse. Grief ages into sorrow, and sorrow is an enduring rider.

All I asked was that I be spared surprises, although, in this world of six billion souls, all acting with free will and too many with audacity, surprises are inevitable, too few of them are the kind that make you smile and that lift your heart.

Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.

We never had books in the house. Not any book in our house. Not a Bible, not anything. So, I would go the library from a very young age and get the books out.