The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.

For many people it's Facebook, or sports on TV, whatever it is. I have my own demons that I battle. But whatever they are, you wish you could not do them. For most of us it's "I cannot get off Facebook." But imagine that your demon has you living on the street. I don't think those compulsions and obsessions are that different.

I think suspense should be like any other color on a writers palette. I suppose Im in the minority but I think its crazy for literary fiction to divorce itself from stories that are suspenseful, and assign anything with cops or spies or criminals to some genre ghetto.

There was a time when self-promotion was considered so verboten, especially for authors.

His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be said; maybe every relationship started over every time two people came together.

He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.