It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

My son, Wolf, was born when I was past 40 and the author of a best-selling novel. That means he has grown up a middle-class child - one who sometimes asks me for stories of my childhood but knows nothing of what it means to grow up poor and afraid. I have worked to make sure of that.

If you write a book that's as powerful and successful as 'Bastard,' there's a strong desire to prove there's something else.

If somebody gave you several thousand dollars and nothin' to do but write, would you be a writer then? Would you tell your stories, your family's stories, then?