At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done.

Curing yourself of obsessive compulsive disorder by going to a strip club is pretty strange.

God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us

I always want to write something better than the last book.

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.