Women are extremely important shapers of my own life.

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.

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.

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

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

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