It wasn't that I was stupid ... It was just that there didn't seem to be a lot to say that someone wasn't already saying.

You know, maybe that's all anybody wants, is to be useful. And have somebody else notice it.

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.

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.

The sea, the sea, the sea. It rolled and rolled and called to me. Come in, it said, come in.

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 tried. Can't do it. Brain's empty.