As I get older, I'm finding that I recognize certain celebrities only because they frequently grace the pages of US Weekly, but beyond that, I have no idea what they do.

I'd say that most of life seems to me to be that way, a mixture of the mundane and the mythic, when you're living the life of the mind.

I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you know you have to hit the ground running.

As writers, we live very much in our own minds much of the time, buzzing in our unconscious spaces as we go about the business of living in the world.

I feel that if I establish the world or the premise from the first line, then I can get the reader to come with me where I want her to go.

When a certain show or film or celebrity captures the imagination of the masses that has a good deal to say about us, I think, and what is happening in our collective psyche.

I could have a lot of fun with Michael Jackson, I'm sure.

I'm a pop culture junkie. I'm a People magazine reader, an US Weekly subscriber; all of those celebrity magazines get my dollar.

As a reader I gravitate toward work that rests in the gray area, that doesn't come with easy answers.

I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

Failure is only an option

Love and kindness are the basis of my religious beliefs. The rituals and outward signs are not as important as one's actions and deeds. Religion should be a path to God, not something to fight about.

Those who escape hell however never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that

There are a lot of theories about Shakespeare.

I don't care what people say. My music's my music.

A day is sometimes our mother, sometimes our stepmother.

Try pitching a story of happiness to your editors and their toes are going to curl up.

I've always wanted a baby.

Innovation no longer remains a choice but has become an imperative.

We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean.