I think much of my own quest in life is to figure out how best to cope with my own uncertainties.

I grew up in San Francisco. And I grew up with gay parents.

My mom is Episcopalian; my dad is ancestrally Jewish but personally atheist. After their divorce, however, my dad married a Jewish spiritual director, and I became fascinated by the traditions she brought into our lives.

We forget that most questions in this world - the ones that really matter - are impossible to answer completely.

None of us know what comes after death. All of us, to some extent, are probably mystified or maybe a little bit frightened of it.

Teaching was an incredible experience, and I miss it a lot, but I also love the job I have now.

It's an unbelievable, absurd paradox that we have to put one step in front of the other every day without knowing which one will be our last.

You can't have bad things happening to characters simply for shock value; you need to provide context.

I did invent the idea of using lucid dreaming to treat sleep disorders, but I was influenced by many real-life researchers - from forefathers like Freud and Jung to Stephen Laberge and Rosalind Cartwright, who explore lucid dreaming and parasomnias.

I think readers either love or hate nonlinear storytelling, and it's true that it can be more difficult, both to write and to read.