Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

Theres a lot to be said for doing what youre not supposed to do, and the rewards of doing what youre supposed to do are more subtle and take longer to become apparent, which maybe makes it less attractive. But your life is the blueprint you make after the building is built.

You can't always go to the well and have things be funny.

A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers.

Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.