I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

As my early drawings warned me, where humans go, lions and tidal waves follow.

I'm a very rooted person. I grew up in Norwich, Connecticut, I still live in Connecticut.

My Italian-American heritage, of which I'm very proud and with which I identify strongly, surfaces in several of my novels.

I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life.

I am a plodder, I make an appointment with my computer everyday and I have no idea where I am going.

If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.