A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination.

The thieves and killers are goin' to have guns, so if the honest men don't have 'em they just make it easier for the vicious.

If you want to be creative, go where your questions lead you.

Man needs so little... yet he begins wanting so much.

If you write a book set in the past about something that happened east of the Mississippi, it's a 'historical novel.' If you write about something that took place west of the Mississippi, it's a 'Western'- and somehow regarded as a lesser work. I write historical novels about the frontier.

What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home.

After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?