Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I want to Live! Not Die, Not Hide, LIVE!

Fail big if you have to, but go down trying.

There's something about each of my books that I'm really proud of, and there's something about each of my books that I cringe over.

That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father - burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin - doesn't seem to belong on it.

Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him.

I loved to read when I was a kid, and as soon as I realized that an actual person got to make up the books I loved so much, I decided that that was the job for me.