When I was growing up in the Forties and Fifties, you could hide your children from the difficulties of life, but today you can't separate children's contact with the adult world today.

It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

You get to about 65 or 70 and you lose friends and the world does seem to be an endlessly difficult place and tragic place, so it's more and more difficult for me to find the bright lights.

Sometimes you go for weeks without writing successfully, and you don't feel like a writer anymore. When friends ask me how my week was or how I'm doing, I think back on it, and I've just been by myself. Like, I'm just a sketch.

As a musician, you want to be your own favorite artist and be able to make the music that is an accumulation of all your favorite influences.

My biggest accomplishment has been making a transition from athlete to author.

Basketball's fun; it really is. Because I've done it all my life.