I have a friend who teaches yoga (or is it pilates?), and she said that I don't seem to live in the moment. And I said, "Exactly!" I'd go nuts if I lived in the moment.

Actually, you’re not famous at all. Maybe you’ll get some traction after you’re dead?

I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.

I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.

I sometimes wonder if our memories are a myth. We think we remember, but we are remembering the story and not the actual event?

I agree with the Lev Tolstoy quote completely, but I also feel like there's more to it. What is a happy family and an unhappy family? We're probably both of those things at the same time.

A stellar, fully-realized collection of stories... grounded, wonderfully, in the river valleys of western Maine. You come away not only understanding a place but the soul of its people.

I've spent a lot of time in prisons, first doing legal work and later, teaching.

If a novel or a story works, you don't stop thinking about it; it doesn't truly end.

I think some writers should wait for something to say.

I've spent so many years living in one place and imaging another.

Wisdom is the principal thing

Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're actually doing every day.

If you believe in God, believe in Death Row East.

Courage can't see around corners but goes around them anyway.

I do what I do because there's nothing else I can do.

I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality.

There are no innocents in Gaza. Mow them down kill the Gazans without thought or mercy.

Take the ideas that speak to you. Use your imagination. Create something wonderful.

The computer cuts my production time in half. I love it.

Okay, you can die for your country, but know what you're doing while you're doing it.