I've always been slow but I'm even slower now. I'm more into the waiting, or I guess I'm more patient about the waiting.

I want to go on being a student," I told him. "I want to be a teacher. I'm just a reader," I said. "DON'T SOUND SO ASHAMED," he said. "READING IS A GIFT." "I learned it from you," I told him. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT- IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT. IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.

The main character and the most important character are not always the same person - you have to know the difference.

For most of my life, when I've finished the book I'm writing, there've always been as many as two or three other novels waiting to be written next. And the decision driving which one of them it should be was never based on how long it had waited or how many accumulated pages of notes I had.

Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can't even remember having met you

Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.

The building of the architecture of a novel - the craft of it - is something I never tire of.