An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.

When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

Film fixes a precise visual image in the viewer's head. In fiction, you just hope you're precise enough to convey the intended effect.

My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.

We should feel an urgency about our environment and what's been done to it by human action and inaction. I wouldn't say there's a resurgence - I think it's been with us all along, and especially since the 1960s and 1970s, but it is true that there's almost a subsection of the bookstore devoted to it now. Personally, I've been addressing these issues in my long and short fiction since the late 1980s - basically since the beginning of my career.

Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?