I was raised in a little church, the Grundy Methodist Church, that was very straight-laced, but I had a friend whose mother spoke in tongues. I was just wild for this family. My own parents were older, and they were so over-protective. I just loved the 'letting go' that would happen when I went to church with my friend.

I think what happens to young writers is that they use up every life experience that they have had up to that point for their first novel. Then you have to come up with something for the second novel, but you really don't have anything to say.

I had always dreamed of living in Chapel Hill. When I was a college student at Hollins University in Virginia, I came down to Chapel Hill for summer school and just loved it.

I write about people in small towns; I don't write about people living in big cities. My kind of storytelling depends upon people that have time to talk to each other.

In the Internet world, especially in Silicon Valley, everyone is at the ready all the time, and turnaround is relatively short, if not instant.

The idea that Google, Yahoo, and eBay are getting a free ride is absolutely unfair criticism. We have to build out our own infrastructure. And we have to inter-connect to the public Internet.

Technology has made it easier for different firms to coordinate their activities with one another, and they don't have to be part of one company. They can get the benefits of scale without the inertia of scale.

I occasionally read digital books when I'm traveling, but I do so begrudgingly.