I love the Bahamas, and I used to go there all the time with my friend who passed away, Henry. And I love it there, especially that island [Grand Exuma], so I've been there a lot over the twenty years.

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.

Being in the presence of the "other" seems to show me who I am in a way that is really important to me. I feel radically more comfortable in Laos, say, than I do in Pennsylvania.

I'm not very interested in telling the facts. I have a lot of investment in telling the truth.

Stillness is a harder concept for me than ecstasy, but I can imagine it best when I am fully present and paying strict attention to a place I am moving through.

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story.

I always think, when I'm in motion, writing seems like the most natural thing.