In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

Writing is a strange synthesis between the two parts of your mind: the analytical side and the side that knows nothing at all, and you have to allow the dreaming side free rein.

I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.

Life should be embraced like a lover.

In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

Forget the boring old dictum, 'Write about what you know.' Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.