Time doesn’t, as advertised, heal all wounds. Although the wrenching immediacy of grief eventually passed, the settled sorrow that replaced it might in its own way be even more intense.

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks.

I just became fascinated with how complex and unlikely the universe is and life is and Catholicism gives me an answer to that.

Blizzards, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, earthquakes: They fascinate because they nakedly reveal that Mother Nature, afflicted with bipolar disorder, is as likely to snuff us as she is to succor us.

Stay low, stay quiet, keep it simple, don't expect too much, enjoy what you have.

In a crunch a man's reputation never counts for as much as it ought to.

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