A successful novel should interrupt the reader’s life, make him or her miss appointments, skip meals, forget to walk the dog.

I don't ask myself, "Well, does God exist or does God not exist?" I choose to believe that God exists, and therefore I can say, "God, I can't do this by myself. Help me not to take a drink today. Help me not to take a drug today." And that works fine for me.

I like to think that good people win. But even good people have other sides. Most people will slow down to get a good look at an accident, even though they won't admit it.

Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.

People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

Too often, in novels that are speculative, God is a kind of kryptonite, and that's about all that it is, and it goes back to Dracula, where someone dumps a crucifix in Count Dracula's face, and he pulls away and runs back into his house. That's not religion. That's some kind of juju, like a talisman.