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.

I'm not proselytizing my method. I don't believe that one writer should tell other writers how to write.

Plot is a map and I begin with it. It is what made me admire the novels of the 19th century; that the stories are foreshadowed. TheyÕre going someplace.

When people say that German or any other language is romantic... all they really mean is that they've enjoyed a past in the language

but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

A truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy