William Kittredge's 'Hole in the Sky' is one of my favorite books. Ian Frazier's 'Family' I adore.

If you feel like you don't have a choice to write it, write it. If you feel like you do have a choice, then move on, because there are so many books in the world.

I have faith that worthy but misunderstood or ignored books can still prevail - and when they do, fewer joys are as sweet - but authors have families to support and rent to pay, and for them, I hope for acclaim in their time rather than late-in-life or posthumously.

My experience is that books take on a life of their own and create their own energy. I've represented books that have been sold for very little money and gone on to great glory, and I've seen books sold for an enormous amount of money published to very little response.

Recovery is an ongoing project that is really discrete from everything else in my life. It allows me to be an agent, allows me to write, allows me to be married, allows me to be part of a family. The writing is not a support beam of recovery but a happy consequence of it.

Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.