Don’t be in too much of a rush to be published. There is enormous value in listening and reading and writing—and then putting your words away for weeks or months–and then returning to your work to polish it some more.

I started thinking about life insurance and how nice it would be if you could get insurance that your life would be happy, and that everyone you knew could be happy, and they could all do what they really wanted to do, and they could all find the people they wanted to find.

Sometimes when you are trying not to think about something it keeps popping back in your head you can't help it you think about it and think about it and think about it until your brain feels like a squashed pea.

I love the way that each book -- any book -- is its own journey. You open it, and off you go. You are changed in some way, large or small, by having traveled with those characters.

As readers can probably tell from my books, I love the outdoors. I love to hike, kayak, and swim. I also love to read (which is probably not a surprise) and I love the theater and art museums. I especially love all the instruments of art: inks, pens, paintbrushes, watercolors and oils, fine papers and canvases, and although I love to mess around with these tools and objects, I have minimal artistic skills.

I entered a poem in a poetry contest around 1987, and the poem won and I received $1,000 for it. That made me realize that maybe what I was writing was worth reading to people. After that, for some reason, I turned to novels and I've written mainly novels ever since.

Why do people not listen when you say no? Why do they think you are too stupid or too young to understand? Why do they think you are too shy to reply? Why do they keep badgering you until you will say yes?