Although I wasnt able to get a visa for Vietnam, I was able to talk with swift boat veterans to get a feel for the time and place, and I visited a tropical prison in the Philippines to get a sense of what a Vietnamese prison might have been like.

I always try to make the setting fit the story I have in mind.

The highest praise a writer can give another is to say he wishes he had written his book. I wish I had written Forty Words for Sorrow. Giles Blunt has a tremendous talent. If you miss Forty Words for Sorrow, you'll miss one of best novels of 2001.

The first Chapter Law is, "Don't spend much time on it. You're going to have to rewrite it."

The essays in The Great Taos Bank Robbery were my project to win a Master of Arts degree in English when I quit being a newspaper editor and went back to college.

I am 82 years old. I imagine that I will keep on writing as long as anyone wants to keep reading.

Being Indian is not blood as much as it is culture.