Winter in the country is very white. There is black grit on all the shoulders of the roads and on the big mounds from the plows, and all the cars are filthy, but the fields are dazzling and untouched and pristine.

Every corny thing that's said about living with nature - being in harmony with the earth, feeling the cycle of the seasons - happens to be true.

I am unusually Halloween-attentive, because, as it happens, I was born on Halloween, so for me it has always been an occasion of great moment.

Being a good designer certainly doesn't guarantee that you're good at business. It's probably more surprising when the two talents coexist in one person.

I remember three- and four-week-long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy.

I suppose I do have one embarrassing passion- I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.

You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.