Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up.

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...

...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.

Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.

I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.