Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.

I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.

The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

I don't think of myself as an illustrator. I think of myself as a cartoonist. I write the story with pictures - I don't illustrate the story with the pictures.