I want to engage the reader. I'm an emotional writer, in the sense that I would be happy if you re-read a book for the intellectual or the mental part of it, but, the first time, I just like to reach out and grab you, pull you in.

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.

Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.

Terrible thing to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time.

The redness was going out of the light now, the remains of the day were a fading pink, the color of wild roses.

The multiple choices of possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to.

The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.