It's different being afraid when there's the hope it will amount to something.

I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse.

So, whenever I'm writing, I'm writing in the presence of all the other books I've read and I think we all are.

Sara waited a respectful time, knowing there was nothing she could do to ease the woman's pain. Grief was a place, Sara understood, where a person went alone. It was like a room without doors, and what happened in that room, all the anger and the pain you felt, was meant to stay there, nobody's business but yours.

There's an outline for each of the books that I adhere to pretty closely, but I'm not averse to taking it in a new direction, as long as I can get it back to where I need it to go.

The military was all about hierarchies, who urinated highest on the hydrant

My inventing time is all done under the influence of aerobic exercise. Basically, I do all my thinking while I run.