What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.

The object of war is to survive it.

It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.

Life is serious but art is fun!

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.

You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.