Post-modernism is dead because it didn't address human needs.

My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.

My book is traditional. It runs counter to the post-modern spirit.

I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.

Fiction is socially meaningful.

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.

I think of myself as a really happy person.

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 have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.

Cities produce in me melancholy or a tension I don't need.

There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.

I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years.

It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

What sustains me is to be with my family and to write.

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.

Hemingway said the only way to write about a place is to leave it.

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.

I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.

I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer.

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'm not an urban 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.

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.

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.

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.

I grew up in Seattle, but I always knew I wanted to leave.

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.

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 often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute.

I became paralyzed as an artist with writer's block.

Everybody has a world, and that world is completely hidden until we begin to inquire. As soon as we do, that entire world opens to us and yields itself. And you see how full and complex it is.

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.

Post-modernism is dead because it didn't address human needs.

Accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.

The fact is I've been in Massachusetts for the last two weeks, and it seems over the last few days that the price is increasing by the hour at the pump, so there needs to be an aggressive investigation.

I feel that education needs an overhaul - courses are obsolete and grades are on the way out.

Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.

We are a communicating nation which needs access to space, access to the seas.

Every kid needs a mentor. Everybody needs a mentor.

One needs a Seer's Vision and an Angel's voice to be of any avail. I do not know of any Indian man or woman today who has those gifts in their most complete measure.

So the old Copenhagen interpretation needs to be generalized, needs to be replaced by something that can be used for the whole universe, and can be used also in cases where there is plenty of individuality and history.

All of us who are convinced that our military needs all the support the government and public will provide are pleased that he will have his chance to do just that.

It's depressing and scary, but he needs to know the world around him because he's fourteen now and in two years he's going to drive. He needs to know what goes on out in the world. I'm not going to always be there.

You feel the music needs something but you don't know what. So you start searching, fitting, measuring, trying. Every time you try another angle. And sometimes that's frustrating, especially if you don't come up with something for three days.

Remember, man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.

But clearly at the same time you've got to get out there and connect with voters and actually respond to the needs, the frustrations, whatever problems their now saying are not being adequately solved.

From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is.