 Don Quixote is one that comes to mind in comparison to mine, in that they both involve journeys undertaken by older men. That is unusual, because generally the hero of a journey story is very young. |
| I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer. |
| When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars. |
| I have traveled the entire state and spent a lot of time out of doors. So I have known the landscape of the Columbia Basin for quite a while, and I have had this strong feeling about it for many years. |
| I think of myself as a really happy person. |
| I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts. |
| At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices. |
| There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left. |
| I'm not an urban person. |
| I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation. |
| Time made me change. I gradually woke up to the realization that this is who I am, an author, a public figure, and I couldn't just hide in my study, tapping away at the keyboard and pretend that I didn't have a role to play beyond stringing words together. |
| Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it. |
| My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit. |
| I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years. |
| Even though I may not intend it when I set out to write the book, these places just emerge as major players in what I'm doing, almost as if they are insisting on it. |
| When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer. |
| Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me. |
| It doesn't matter who you are, how many awards you've won, how popular you are, or how much critical acclaim you've had. |
| I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave. |
| Cities produce in me melancholy or a tension I don't need. |
