Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes.

This strange business of what it is to be a writer is this increasingly insane world in which we live, in which surrealism, it seems, is the new realism.

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.

I get a lot of letters - a lot of letters saying, who knew that you were funny?

When you have children, your perspective on the parent-child relationship alters.

This may be the curse of human race . Not that we are different from one anther , but we are so alike .