I've found that I seek out oddballs; I like strange and eccentric people a lot.

I've always liked the classic "young adult" writers like Mark Twain, Jack London, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens. They write so clearly, and they know how to entertain.

I'm not very disciplined. I tend to write late at night because I get distracted during the day.

I'm just a dog person. I love dogs very much, especially big ones, hounds, and retrievers. I think they are funny and often have good senses of humor. Plus, they give unconditional love.

I have two dogs myself and they are always around when I write, so they tend to creep in there.

I like people who lead unusual lives, and very often a person with a disability fits into that category.

I wanted to do a collection where the narrator is constant throughout, so that there's a little unity.

I'm trying to write stories that are interesting and enjoyable.

I want the situations and plots to be surprising and unusual.

I know that some of the things which happen in these stories are not likely, but sometimes I wonder if they are not possible in some way.

Sometimes the autobiographical link in each story is very literal, like I did work at The Texas School for the Blind, and I did once lose a mattress out of the back of a friend's truck.

Broken-hearted leaders change things that go beyond their generation.

I don't need to be motivated by anybody. Never have.

The thing that drives me more than anything else is being a father.

If you're never ridden a fast horse at a dead run across a desert valley at dawn, be of good cheer: You've only missed out on one half of life.

One must learn how to be black in America.

We cannot change ideas in the minds of men and races with machine guns or battle ships.

My first love is acting on stage. A sitcom is a hybrid of stage and film.

There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an ability to make you feel that he is writing for you alone.

I am always looking for some clue, some easily missed sign that might just be the missing piece in the puzzle.

When you're dead, you don't breathe, you don't see, you don't feel, you don't love.