I became an electrician after high school. But I always had this thing in me to write. But it was always a little shameful. To say you were a poet was saying you were kind of crazy, and I carried that around for a long time. I still kind of carry that. And I think it might be true, actually.

Everything we do, I'd imagine, influences everything we will do.

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.

I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work of art.

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.

Read as much as you can. Write only when you feel the inner need to do so. And don’t ever rush into print.

That soldiers do terrible things during wartime should not surprise us.