I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.

Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.

I don't think that writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects just need time, as I've learned over and over again. You've got to wait before you write about them.

I see the world in ways that might be considered somewhat harsh and Darwinistic. At the same time mediated, as in Darwin, by a real idealism and an excitement about the possibilities of the intellect and imagination to deal with this somewhat brutal world.

Sometimes people surprise us. People we believe we know.

Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.

When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life.