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

It would have been so perfectly ironic if I had been killed by the dog, because I was petting a dog who was not used to being pet, because I think I'm some kind of dog whisperer, and I think I can make any dog love me.

I write well on the road. I have the energy, I have the motivation to write. I'm happy when I'm on the road.

For me, the shaping of the story is more important than accuracy.

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.

I wanted her to see that the only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves.