Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

He'd gone out to a sporting goods store and he'd bought a long-bladed fish-gutting knife and he had strapped it and when he pulled that knife on me, that was a very close thing because the struggle for the knife spilled over into the hall, ... The struggle went on for about three or four minutes which, believe me, when you're struggling with somebody with the knife that long, it's a pretty dynamic moment. And I got the knife away from him.

When I was eight I remember writing one about the perfect puppy, ... I guess I always liked dogs, too. I was always fascinated with dogs.

...up to no good—and pleased about it.

Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.

The stoic contemplates fallen leaves; the epicure rakes them into a loveseat.