Cursing dads are terrifying, you know? Cursing dads are - I don't know why, but no. It just doesn't seem to me that that would be funny. I mean it might be - you could try it and see. I suppose anybody just losing it and sputtering curses is pretty funny. But I think it would be more of a challenge, much more of a challenge, to make a cursing dad funny.

I think what is important for things to be funny is if you the listener, or the reader, get a chance to supply the humor of it yourself.

When the days start to get shorter, I want to be in some nice brick building on the East Coast with the lights glowing in the windows. When the daylight starts changing, I want to be out West.

Siberia is so big, it’s almost more an idea than a place

There's an idea of the Plains as the middle of nowhere, something to be contemptuous of. But it's really a heroic place.

I don't want to collect Indian art, though pots and beadwork and blankets made by Indians remain the most beautiful art objects in the American West, in my opinion.

A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.