The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.

A memoir is not an autobiography. It's a true story told as a novel, using techniques of novelization. The author is allowed to compress events, combine characters, change names, change the sequence of events, just as if he's writing a novel. But it's got to be true.

I ate supper after Dad saw the evening shift down the shaft, and I went to sleep to the ringing of a hammer on steel and the dry hiss of an arc welder at the little tipple machine shop during the hoot-owl shift.

Tired of burning fossil fuel and polluting the planet? The moon is covered with helium 3, an isotope from the sun that is the perfect fuel for clean fusion reactors.

I have the best fans of any author in the country and they deserve the best from me, too!

I always give a little talk before I sign books and ask for questions. I love the Q&A sessions. We have a lot of fun at my book signings. I make sure of that!

The time frame is summer 1961, a year after the gold medal in the National Science Fair. I always saw my 'Coalwood' books as a trilogy. This book finishes the story of my life in Coalwood. I think it's the best of the three.

After I'd gotten a year under my belt in college, I thought I'd outgrown my home.

If politicians want to save money, that's fine. They can look for all the wasteful spending they want, but not where the lives of miners are involved.

When legislators do something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, there's always the suspicion that they're in somebody's pocket.