I'd be a dope to compare my writing with Wallace Stegner's, but that book probably influenced me in ways I didn't even realize while I was writing The Night Journal.

It took me ten years to write The Night Journal, so that was a big ordeal.

I love Austin. It's great here. I don't mind the heat.

I grew up thirty miles down the highway in San Marcos, and I've still got family there, so I guess I'm pretty well rooted.

I love the writers in Austin. We stick together. We all like each other and go to each other's book signings in case no one else shows up.

When Larry Wright won the Pulitzer for The Looming Tower we all strutted around for weeks, until some sourpuss among us noted that it was actually Larry, and not the rest of us, who won the prize.

I got hooked on TV westerns back in the early sixties when I was about five, mostly because my brother was addicted to them and wouldn't let me watch anything else.

It seems like the Western genre has crept out of its casings during the last few years, and expanded to include books and movies we wouldn't originally have thought of as westerns.

The defining aspects of westerns are still pretty much in place - namely landscape and conflict. In other books the conflict can be internal, but in westerns it usually plays out on a big stage.

I think when you're a writer most of what you read influences you. The rhythms get into your head.

In middle school I wrote a paper on Hemingway and none of the sentences had more than five words.

Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you.

You are not alone in the struggles of life. Entire cosmos is with you. It evolves through the way you face and overcome challenges of life. Use everything in your advantage.

We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don't allow our bodies to heal, and we don't allow our minds and hearts to heal.

Ringing assurance that we are not alone... That we are assisted and defended by a powerful and glorious order of invisible Beings.

I think it's better to have ideas.

If you think of having a family as being loved as a child, cared for - I did not experience that.

Fair Game Theory: If you are dumb enough to be drained by people then you are fair game.

Support for shelters and transitional living and housing programs is necessary if we are going to change the landscape for homeless boys and girls in America.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

Macau is democratic and free enough.. it's prosperous enough. Why do people need to do this?.