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

I always have one or two, sometimes more, Navajo or other tribes' cultural elements in mind when I start a plot. In Thief of Time, I wanted to make readers aware of Navajo attitude toward the dead, respect for burial sites.

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.

Everything is connected. The wing of the corn beetle affects the direction of the wind, the way the sand drifts, the way the light reflects into the eye of man beholding his reality. All is part of totality, and in this totality man finds his hozro, his way of walking in harmony, with beauty all around him.

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

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

I try to make my books reflect humanity as I see it.