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This is a cliche, but in fiction, I feel it is easier for me to get to some sort of truth, some kind of more honest writing.

A writer's job is to tell the truth.

I was always at heart a novelist and wanted to tell a bigger story, so I wanted to create people who told other kinds of truths than literal truths.

Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction.

I do my best to build a strong factual foundation for each of my novels and rely upon my author's notes to keep my conscience clear.

My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

Through language, we can tell the truth and hear the truth spoken, just as we can be deceived. Sometimes it's a painful realization: we can be lied to. As I write, I think of myself as putting my eye under oath, so that what I write is the truth about my characters.