Life gives us what we need when we need it; receiving what it gives us is a whole other thing.

Do you write novels?" I said. "Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.

When a book is in its final stages, I've just got to be home, looking at it seventeen hours a day, and that's fine. But all that initial creation of the early drafts, I'd just as soon write it on the road in any extreme place. That's sort of ideal.

One thing I'm always thinking about myself is what am I willing to make up? And the answer is not much.

Sometimes I'm writing for magazines on assignment, but the university has to be patient with me. I mean, during the ten-week periods that I have a class, I'm there every Thursday night or whatever it is, but sometimes that's all I'm there, because I'm somewhere else the rest of the time.

I've been to a lot of school and read a lot of thick books, but at my very core there's a made-for-TV-movie mentality I don't think i will ever shake.

I write really well on the road.