I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

You bring your own weather to the picnic.

I'm also inspired by anything that I consider great. It makes me want to raise my game too - Hitchcock movies, Hopper paintings, Springsteen concerts.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter.

My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write.

Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay