A Catholic is raised with the idea that he will die any minute now and if he doesn't live his life in a certain way, this death is an introduction to an eternity of pain.

If an idea seems to find its way towards a stage setting, that's the direction I take. I don't know if I'm trying to achieve anything other than to follow an idea on to the page.

A writer decides to follow some ideas and not others for reasons that aren't always clear to him. It's often a matter of intuition.

A novel determines its own size and shape and I've never tried to stretch an idea beyond the frame and structure it seemed to require.