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.

IF you are not for yourself, who will be for you? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when?

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.

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.

From where we stand the rain seems random. If we could stand somewhere else, we would see the order in it.

Women are extremely important shapers of my own life.

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.