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.

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.

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'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.

Can the sin of one or a few cause suffering for many? The answer, of course, is yes, for no sin is isolated in the life of the sinner. It spreads like poison gas into every available crevice.

Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.

American cities are not scaled to the energy diet of the future. They have become too large. They're over-scaled.

I could feel the tears beginning to collect in my throat again, but I pushed them apart, away from each other. Tears are only a threat in groups.

I was performing skin grafts and became interested in why skin wouldn't graft permanently.

Don't believe those who claim that only left wing parties really care about employment.

The Pre highlighted things I needed to tweak. I'm glad I ran there and found the things I needed to tweak and didn't find those things out here.

Love is... what makes a weak man brave and a king step off his throne. Good times, bad times, easy times, tough times, it comes in an instant and lasts three days after forever. That's what love is.

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society

Most wars are not won in a single battle.