It has often been said that [...] the Japanese [are] geniuses at taking foreign ideas and adding a unique finishing touch.

I can't point to a moment or incident that made me see that this business, this putting down words on paper, was what I would do for the rest of my lucid life. But apparently, that is my calling.

Before I was reading science fiction, I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends well. It was one of those times where reading has meant a great deal to me, in terms of my development - an insight came from that book.

It has often been said that [...] the Japanese [are] geniuses at taking foreign ideas and adding a unique finishing touch.

I'm the only member of SFWA in Nebraska, but I don't pine away for the companionship of other science fiction writers. I [go] to very few conventions. I'm quite willing to be that eccentric who has a very odd job, quite happy to be the only science fiction writer in town.

The burden of intelligence: you can always imagine all those wonderful places where you can never belong.

I don't believe people let things slide away. It's the nature of the universe that everything dissolves into oblivion and by every route possible, but human beings invest a lot of cleverness trying to cling to past events, real or imagined. And because we can't succeed, we get angry and frustrated and feel guilty. Except the Buddhists.