I gave up writing for seven years (very biblical) and picked it up again, still clueless and still seeking the exotic, when I was twenty-one.

In my brief writing life, it means I am still lucky that I have at least one more novel to complete. I do not expect that a story will arrive just because it is time to write another novel. It doesn't happen that way.

You can't be 24 again; you can't be new when you're 40 years old.

I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago.

I gave a client a $15,000 budget for tile and she went and picked out what she wanted and spent $35,000. To have someone blow a budget like that. ... There's just an unbelievable amount of expression to be done with tile.

In 'Seven Years In Tibet,' I played a Buddhist. But I'm not religious at all, really.