I've never been very attached to genre labels and never set out intentionally to write historic fiction. Besides, what you consider historic depends on how far back your memory extends.

Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom.

We are not strong enough to stand up against endless grief, And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it is only in the passing instant.

She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.

Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.

Thinking: this journey will be the axle of my life.

All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be not worth passing on to grandchildren.

Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.

I had never taken creative writing classes. Hadn't even considered it.

A lizard in the spring - hear his darling sing. A bird with wings to fly - go back to his darling weep and moan till he dies. A mole in the ground - root a mountain down.

He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed he decided to append an eighth, regret.

Her searches after knowledge were arbitrary and without context. It was as if she were shining a small flashlight of curiosity into the dark room of the world.

The best part about turning to the dark side of you, it sets you free.

A father should do more - a father should give more to his children than he takes.

Every nation has a moral obligation to safeguard the future.

Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.

After a gig I get to the hotel all psyched-up from being on stage and get stuck into 'Homes and Interiors' magazine.

I will give up my belief in evolution if someone finds a fossil rabbit in the Precambrian.

At the end of the day, storytelling is actually very simple in its origin as long as there are people who want to tell stories and there are people who want to hear them.

You get yourself prepared for a big game, you get yourself up for it. Then afterwards you don't sleep or eat properly.

Feeling good and feeling bad are not necessarily opposites. Both at least involve feelings. Any feeling is a reminder of life. The worst 'feeling' evidently is non-feeling.