And then there's the personal question so many of Lassie's fans want to ask: Is he allowed on the furniture? Of course he is-but, then, he's the one who paid for it.

Writing fiction is a resolutely solitary pastime, and I love being with people, so the public side of being an author is, to me, the reward for all the private time invested. And I love teaching to a fault; I have a hard time not giving away a lot of my own writing energy to my students.

When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.

Of all the virtues, discretion began to seem the most rewarding: it kept people guessing and sometimes, by default, admiring.

All I meant was that people take their same old lives wherever they go. No place is perfect enough to strip you of that. And some places have a way of magnifying your demons, or of, I don't know, giving them pep pills.

Now is almost always the better choice. You never know about later.

My publisher is generous with deadlines, which are never set in stone. Some writers need that pressure, but I am more productive when there's less panic.