What to know about pain is how little we do to deserve it, how simple it is to give, how hard to lose.

Stephen King has the exact ability that Charles Dickens had. To get to his readers in spite of or despite anything the reviews say.

It's hard to read real fiction. It takes time. It takes a sustained attention.

There is a lack of context in contemporary education. And contemporary consideration - because we live in those interiorities so much. Especially young kids who live by surfing the Web.

I read a lot of poetry. I read some history.

History is beautiful stories or scary stories, yeah.

In a way, I see my fiction as having moved in that direction - and the characters as dealing simultaneously with their personal history and with the present in which they are trying to make their way. So that the books are simultaneously about public and interior events. And I am having a great time getting confused and crazed writing about them.