I try to leave out the parts readers skip.

Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.

I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.

Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.

Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.

Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.