Halfway across town, Father Tibor Kasparian lay on the long hard cement cot that was what this jail cell had for a bed and wished he had a book. It could be any book. He didn’t really think he could read right now, but it always made him feel better, and calmer, and more sane, to hold a book. He had never been able to understand people who did not read. He had never been able to understand how they held on to themselves.

You’ve either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you’ve got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

I tend to come up with people more than situations – most of my books start with a character.

I’ve been a teacher at the college level, in composition mostly, and I’ve been an editor on magazines.

Listen to advice. You don’t know how many writer’s conferences I’ve taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field.

I’d like to write a history, maybe of the Reformation.

Everybody is a True Believer. Everybody has a little nugget they’re convinced of that is the opposite of the nugget on the other side. And they’re convinced it’s fact.

My husband used to take care of the business part of this, and after he died I found I wasn’t really any good at it. I hate remembering who owes me what and bugging them if they haven’t paid me.

In my day, we didn’t have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.

The Internet makes it possible for people like me to live the way I do now. Without it, I’d have to be in New York or some other city. I think the Internet is the greatest invention in history after antibiotics.