That no one dies of migraine seems, to someone deep into an attack, an ambiguous blessing.

My first notebook was a Big Five tablet, given to me [at age five] by my mother with the sensible suggestion that I stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts.

When the ground starts moving, all bets are off.

I myself love to read those Victorian novels which go on and on, and you don't read them in one sitting. You might read one over the course of a summer, but that isn't what I want to write.

Why do you always have to be right. Why do you always have to have the last word. For once in your life just let it go.

Novels are almost like music or poetry - they just come to me in simple sentences, whereas I think my pieces get more and more complex ever since I've started using a computer.

Lancaster, California ... that promised land sometimes called 'the west coast of Iowa.