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.

A writer is like a bag lady going through life with a sack and a pointed stick collecting stuff.

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.

You write for two people, yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart.

Women are extremely important shapers of my own life.

An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.

Thoughts, and words that spring from them, bend the individual's reality. To speak of death is to invite it. To think of sorrow is to produce it.