My dad used to say that living with regrets was like driving a car that only moved in reverse.

Choices are funny things-ask a native tribe that's eaten grubs and roots forever if they're unhappy, and they'll shrug. But give them filet mignon and truffle sauce and then ask them to go back to living off the land, and they will always be thinking of that gourmet meal. If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it.

My favorite part of any event is a Q&A. I do get asked a lot of the same questions but every now and then someone surprises me - and I LOVE that.

Dead isn’t angels or ghosts. It’s a physical state of breakdown, a change in all those carbon atoms that create the temporary house of a body so that they can return to their most elemental stage.

The way I challenge myself is by writing something that really engages me, that doesn't have an easy answer, and isn't always an easy book to write.

That's why we read fiction, isn't it? To remind us that whatever we suffer, we're not the only ones?

You'd think someone who'd been to medical school would be able to hear through a stethoscope that somebody was empty inside.