I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.

Making up characters and places and plots, unlike fixing your plumbing or doing dishes, is anything but practical or rational. I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right.

Apparently, I'm very, very popular in jails. They often ask me to come and speak.

There were lots of lies along the way in life. Lies without arms, lies that were ill, lies that did harm, lies that could kill. Lies on foot, or behind the wheel, black-tie lies, and lies that could steal.

If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.

The best stories you usually hear are stories that people feel some type of urgency about.

When I was a kid, I wanted to make my parents happy. I'd always say to them, "What do you want me to do? Do sports? Be rich? Be funny?" My mother would say, "Whatever we want from you, you already gave us - we wanted you to be alive, and you made it."