What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

Not counting Small Steps, I think Holes is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn’t changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I’m still too close to Small Steps to compare it to Holes.

Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.

I think of a book and a play, or a book and a movie, as two separate things - I don't think of it as my novel having a new life.

There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.

Each beat told him he was still alive, at least for one more second.