Reading a novel in which all characters illustrate patience, hard work, chastity, and delayed gratification could be a pretty dull experience.

I do try not to spend much time reading in the suspense genre.

I don't have dry seasons, because I don't allow them.

I had been writing fiction since I was in eighth grade, because I loved it.

If I don't have a project going, I sit down and begin to write something - a character sketch, a monologue, a description of some sight, or even just a list of ideas.

Yes, in my books I do edit myself to keep from becoming the Village Explainer.

Much of what we do in life has a huge component of luck.

I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea - something I've figured out about her that's news and that's worth a reader's time.

It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.

Contrary to what many writers imply about the process, nobody forces a writer to sell his work to the film industry.

Being comfortable isn't the way to learn to expand your abilities.

I design for the working girl.

I often traveled to Nicaragua to speak against repressive policies by the Sandinista government.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Constantine, who murdered his own wife and children, started the Christian religion.

You do look at a lot of movies and many characters seem to be interchangeable.

In the media universe we're in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness.

Hunting after happiness is like hunting after a lost sheep in the wilderness--when you find it, the chances are that it is a skeleton.

The only way I can cope with me and my environment is to have this kind of wall around me. I'm exhausting myself.

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.

Being president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me.

The work that we do during the winter is very important; we have a new bike and it's important to develop it during this time.