I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.

There is very little that is accidental in my work. I believe in serendipity for developments of plot, but the actual writing is arrived at by very hard work. The joy of writing doesn't mean that you don't get the backaches and headaches and the days when it's not coming.

A terrific sadness swept over Jerry. As if somebody had died. The way he felt standing in the cemetry that day they buried his mother. And nothing you could do about it.

I am frightened by today's world, terrified by it. I think that comes out in the books. I'm afraid of big things. Some of these schools have three thousand kids, and even the size of the schools frightens me. Big government frightens me; so does big defense.

That's what Archie did - built a house nobody could anticipate a need for, except himself, a house that was invisible to everyone else.

It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.

I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.