Names and other proper nouns shouldn't distract from the language.
I don't tend to picture my characters as actors and actresses.
I'm for any woman who loves sloths.
Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fiction, and I don't think it's that rich a vein.
No one bought my screenplays.
I wanted to go into the tropics and save animals - and write, of course.
You're lucky if people like your book, and the more people that like it, the luckier I feel.
One man's holy is another woman's sublime.
If you're doing creative work, that work should never feel trivial - even if what you're doing is for hire or lightly intended. Even the mundane doesn't have to be trivial.
If you're going to do a thing, do it fully so that no writing you give the world misrepresents you - so that nothing you put out there is like a sad regift you couldn't throw away and had to find a place for.
In 1805, the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, making their way across the West, were warned by American Indian tribes of grizzly bears' awesome strength.
I've always been interested in obsessive, insane people.
I never seem to leave L.A., though I left L.A.
L.A., for me, is a perfect microcosm of America - because it's so profligate, and so glamorous, and so anti-intellectual, finally.
Most of my books have something to do with L.A.
I've always wondered: is there really any access to the White House?
People who are obsessed amuse me.
I don't write the same book twice.
As soon as a regular guy like Bill Clinton becomes the president, he wears a mantle of greatness. He's the president.
I like to amuse myself.
