It frequently happens that I begin a novel with just a visual image of something, a vague sense of people in three dimensional space.

A writer decides to follow some ideas and not others for reasons that aren't always clear to him. It's often a matter of intuition.

Because friends have to be brutally honest with each other. I'd feel terrible if I didn't tell you what I was thinking, especially at a time like this

If an idea seems to find its way towards a stage setting, that's the direction I take. I don't know if I'm trying to achieve anything other than to follow an idea on to the page.

A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot.

I watch movies occasionally, and I watch documentaries. Virtually nothing else.

That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.