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.

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.

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

It seems to be most leaders have more conventional wisdom, but creative leaders have better common sense.

you don't have to be great to get started but you have to to get started to be great

One sword keeps another in the sheath.

My idea of fast food is a mallard.

Elie [Wiesel], when you ask, "Why do I want to know," I'm trying to grab the holy. And I'm getting thrown back.

To reign by opinion, begin by trampling it under your feet.

I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.

Dancers dance through their pain I shrink from mine.

Everybody who is an actor has been acting since they were three.

A spectre is haunting Western academia (...), the spectre of the Cartesian subject.