I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.

There's a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions - like this anti-gay law you alluded to - and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people's emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.

The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.

I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don't function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I'm even ready to write.

Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.

The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.