I love New York, and I'm drawn to a certain intensity of life, but I've just never felt like I want to escape from the Midwest. A writer lives a great deal in his own head, and so one intuitively finds places where your head is more clear. New York for me is one of those places.

I grew up in a fundamentalist protestant family that stressed that we were a select people and so we were to avoid contact with others who did not share our faith.

Not everyone has a Life's Work. Some people simply have a Life.

Sometimes you have to avoid mentioning things because people's feelings are tender.

Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.

Ha! Easy for nuns to talk about giving up things. That's what they do for a living.

Nothing that readers say or do strikes me as a nuisance. Anyone who cracks open a book of mine is, to me, a gem.