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

Writers who pretend that everything they're doing is completely new are full of it.

I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.

I was very much a child of the Cold War.

If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it.

This ravishing world. This achingly bittersweet, ravishing world.

Kittredge had obviously misjudged her, but he had learned that was the way with most people. The story was never the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry.