I Listen To Bach A Great Deal.

I Have Found That The Characters In My Novels Stay With Me After A Book Has Ended. I Know Them In Some Sense. I Never Map Anything Out. I Just Think Until I Am Secure In The Voice Of One Of Them, And Then Let The Character Unfold.

I Think Probably One Of The Important Things That Happened To Me Was Growing Up In Idaho In The Mountains, In The Woods, And Having A Very Strong Presence Of The Wilderness Around Me. That Never Felt Like Emptiness. It Always Felt Like Presence.

A Narrow Pond Would Form In The Orchard, Water Clear As Air Covering Grass And Black Leaves And Fallen Branches, All Around It Black Leaves And Drenched Grass And Fallen Branches, And On It, Slight As An Image In An Eye, Sky, Clouds, Trees, Our Hovering Faces And Our Cold Hands.

Pity And Charity May Be At Root An Attempt To Propitiate The Dark Powers That Have Not Touched Us Yet.

...if You Ever Wonder What You've Done In Your Life, And Everyone Does Wonder Sooner Or Later, You Have Been God's Grace To Me, A Miracle, Something More Than A Miracle.