I don't ever go on the Internet. I don't even know how it works.

For the vast majority of my adult life, I was a freelance writer, forever scrambling for work that paid an insulting non-amount.

Opinion is dominating, which is absolutely ridiculous - there wouldn't be anything for people to have opinions about if there weren't people out there gathering facts on the ground.

My writing process is chaos. I usually start with an overarching theme. Then I establish several story threads, but I don't outline. I just start writing and keep notes for what may come. It's an...

Presents are symbolic. When you give them in your personal life, they should show that you are paying attention to the person to whom you're giving them.

The bridge to Coronado Island off San Diego was built because the mob had a hotel there and needed a way to get people out there.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

I have friends who have had PTSD, and you can get it from other things than war.

Immigration is a system and a set of policies. And immigrants are the people behind those policies and behind that system, and the human stories.

I'm real. I believe what I'm saying. If Motel 6 wasn't the type of operation they say it is - and I stay at them when I travel - I wouldn't do their commercials. That comes through on the radio, and...

Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.

The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

I have spent a lot of time with foster children over the years - kids for whom I have not necessarily acted as a foster parent.

People will feel safer around you and speak truthfully to you when they feel you are listening intently to them.

I just think cities are unnatural, basically. I know there are people who live happily in them, and I have cities that I love, too. But it's a disaster that we have moved so far from nature.

One way to go about revolution is not trying to change the system within, but trying to build a new system.

It also allows you to look as though you're not particularly from the present, future or past, either.

Americans can accept that the American Dream will not work out for them; what has been heartbreaking for so many is the sense that their children will have it even worse.

The conservative values of limited government and freedom for all coincide with the movement for full freedom and equality for LGBT Americans.

How many different works of art have been inspired by 'Don Quixote?' Thousands. Most people enter the novel, for better or worse, through the musical the 'Man Of La Mancha.'

Quite often somebody will say, What year do your books take place? and the only answer I can give is, In childhood.

Bad leaders believe that they have to project control at all times.

For many years I had heard about an underworld consisting of people who act out a vampire fantasy while I was living in New York. Fortunately for me there are also several books on the phenomena.

Jesus walking on water is an allegory, not fluid mechanics. God destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning, not a historical battle. Doubting Thomas is an example, not a person. The...

I was really nerdy. Compared with my sisters, I often felt like a boring person because I lived so much in my head and in books.

Politicians and leaders who see the media as 'the enemy within' divide society into two clashing cultural camps. Populist demagogues benefit from binary oppositions.

It is our interpretation of the past, our limiting beliefs, and our undigested pain that stop us from being able to move forward with clear direction.

That's important, apologizing, listening, you know, I think the teens I speak with, most of them don't feel understood. They feel like they're being lectured to all the time.

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and...

The addition of romance in my books or mystery to a historical romance is the sauce, not the goose.