I love revising. If you demystify the process, it comes down to four strategies: what can I do to make the draft better; what should I cut out to make it stronger; what do I need to do to clarify it; and finally, what should I reposition.

But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died...They're with me still. They're here...

If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.

I try to stick with what moves me or teaches me about myself, same thing I hope the novels do for others.

Human behavior in the midst of hardship caught my attention very early on, and my first stories were all pictures, no words.

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

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