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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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