A thousand times today I've started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, "Can you tell me...? But then I'd look into the front seat, at my mother's silent shaking, my father's grim profile, the mournful bags under his eyes, and all the questions I might ask seemed abusive. Assault and battery, a question mark used like a club. My parents are old and fragile. I'd have to heartless to want to hurt them.

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.

We'll have a 'rest of our lives' now.

He looked at the piles of food again, and it was like he was seeing it with new eyes. This is wrong, he thought. Letting food rot while people die of hunger. It's evil.

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.

I think I learned a lot from reading in general - even from reading badly written books.

Generally I finish a first draft in 2-6 months, then I set it aside for a while so that when I come back to it I can read it with fresh eyes and figure out how to improve it.