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The people I write are real to me, and basically, they tell me about their environments on a need-to-know basis.

One problem with ideas, however valid, is that they are static and impersonal, whereas a person is active and dynamic.

I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations.

Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.

I think I'm very real as a person, and that comes across in my work.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

Real people are never central characters in my works.

These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It's like meeting old friends. I hope readers feel the same way.