However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

Every writer must acknowledge and be able to handle the unalterable fact that he has, in effect, given himself a life sentence in solitary confinement. The ordinary world of work is closed to him - and that if he's lucky!

On gym days, I don't get to my desk until 4 in the afternoon, and everything except bedtime and the appointment with the liquid narcotic is pushed back a bit.

An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.

I wish I'd known at the beginning that all I really had to do is trust myself. Everything would work out as if by magic once I actually leaned back into my imagination and just let it work, and not question it and not fret about it.

I write longer sentences than most of the others, maybe because I probably like Henry James more than they do.

The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth.