Retribution Is Just Outstanding.

When I'm Writing Fiction I'm Thinking, God, This Is So Hard - I Have To Make All This Stuff Up! I Wish I Were Writing A Nonfiction Book Where All The Facts Are Laid Out And I Don't Have To Be So Much At Sea.

Retribution Is Just Outstanding.

I Would Have To Say The Novel 'war And Peace' Influenced Me More Than Any Other Book. This Greatest Of Novels Demonstrated To Me The Enormous Power Of Literature And Fired Me Up With A Desire To Become A Writer, To Participate In What I Considered Then To Be The Greatest Of All Endeavors.

My First Job Was Washing Dishes In The Basement Of A Nursing Home For $2.10 An Hour, And I Learned As Much About The Value Of Hard Work There As I Ever Did Later.

You Think Of Yourself As An "individual Person", With A Unique And Separate Mind. You Think You Are Born And You Think You Die. All Your Life You Feel Separate And Alone. Sometimes Desperately So. You Fear Death Because You Fear The Loss Of Individuality. All This Is An Illusion. You, He, She, Those Things Around You Living Or Not, The Stars And Galaxies, The Empty Space In Between- These Are Not Distinct, Separate Objects. All Is Fundamentally Entangled.