Hardboiled crime fiction came of age in Black Mask magazine during the Twenties and Thirties. Writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler lear….

Verbs. All of them tiring..

I've never been very attached to genre labels and never set out intentionally to write historic fiction. Besides, what you consider historic depends ….

Writing doesn't come real easy to me. I couldn't write a novel in a year. It wouldn't be readable. I don't let an editor even look at it until the se….

That's not a thing any of us are granted. To go back. Wipe away what later doesn't suit us and make it the way we wish it. You just go on.

People who are isolated interest me, whether they isolate themselves or have been isolated by circumstances..

It is best not to study too much on who gets what they deserve. It can lead to an overly complicated interpretation of God's personal attributes..

I met people when we lived down in Raleigh who'd ask where I grew up, and I'd say about two hours west of Asheville, and they'd say they didn't know ….

We are not strong enough to stand up against endless grief, And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it….

It is a bad idea to live too long. Few carry it off well..

When all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning. Only desire trumps time..

No looking back. Life goes one way only, and whatever opinions you hold about the past having nothing to do with anything but your own damn weakness.….

Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom. Not being bo….

Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate..

Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom..

Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not..

All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be….

She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation..

Contentment is mostly a matter of talking yourself into believing that God will not strike you too hard for leaning in the direction of your hungers..

Nothing changes what alreaday happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't..

Surely it is a sin to reject the few gifts we are given. Be happy in the flash of time granted to us or hurt forever..