There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting.

I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers.

Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing.

Most people like a little sex in their novels.

Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.

These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt.

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'

With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop.

You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.

They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly.

Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me.