The strange thing was, he wanted to like everyone. He just couldn't find a way to do it.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs.

My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.

accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.

It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.

That was the danger of nostalgia, Drizzt realized. One often remembered the good of the past while forgetting the troubles.

The shorter and the plainer the better.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.

Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.

When we know exactly all a man's views and how he comes to speak and act so and so, we lose any respect for him, though we may love and admire him.

The search can be as interesting as the fear you feel, as long as you overcome that fear.

Habit has a kind of poetry.

Anything that is white is sweet. Anything that is brown is meat. Anything that is grey, don't eat.

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

We were over-whelming underdogs.