Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

Ideas come to people who are receptive to them.

It's the easiest thing in the world to know God's will. You just wait and see what happens, and that's it.

I don't plan an awful lot in life just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction.

I think persistence in the face of adversity is an essential part of a writer’s job description. If you don’t care enough about it to avoid being easily disheartened that way, you really should be doing something else.

This church was open and seemingly unattended, and it was a throwback in another way as well. The candles in the little side altars were real ones, actual wax candles that burned with an open flame. Lots of churches have switched over to electrified altars. You drop your quarter in the slot and a flame-shaped bulb goes on and stays on for your quarter's worth of time. It's like a parking meter, and if you stay too long they tow away your soul.

I’ve tried writing and the sentences come out fine, but I write a few pages and I don’t want to go on.