Even as my family fell apart and things were at their most hopeless, my dad and I found a lot of happiness in the wilderness - sleeping on the cold gravel and killing as many things as we could get our hands on. Even as my mom got progressively more crazy, we found a happiness, in flashes.

There was always some germ of joy, some little paramecium of happiness wriggling around, waiting for a chance to get out.

My natural inclination is to think in scenes. So that's how I write, and the issue for me is usually: what to compress for speed.

If you want to write in a mature and interesting way, you have to have sympathy for everyone that's involved.

I've managed to create intimacy with people I know, and people that I don't know. The longer things stay inside of us, the more we think they are black or tainted, but they're really not.

If you need somebody to dig up rocks eight hours a day underwater, call me.

When you're looking around for metaphor or simile, I do think it's often helpful to keep inside the world of the book, to gather your comparisons from the stuff particular to that world - be they king salmon and aviation fuel, or pot roasts and spatulas.