Culture clash is terrific drama.

I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult.

Hunger is the best seasoning.

Knotty theological questions are the least worrying of problems to me. Why? Because they will be resolved in the hereafter, and meanwhile they can be safely shelved.

One of the hardest things for me, now that I'm famous, is finding people who can read my stuff and give me an honest critique.

But desperate people find courage.

I read mostly fiction, a lot of 19th-century novels.