I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.

To me the print business model is so simple where readers pay a dollar for all the content within and that supports the enterprise.

Newspapers with declining circulations can complain all they want about their readers and even say they have no taste. But you will still go out of business over time. A newspaper is not a public trust - it has a business model that either works or it doesn't.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character I cleave the character in half on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

The best writing is not about the writer the best writing is absolutely not about the writer it's about us it's about the reader.

The government's view is that the best time to announce bad news news that it doesn't want the public to dwell on is late on a Friday when it will wind up in the Saturday papers which if you were readers then the week day editions. A holiday weekend is even better.

I always have one or two sometimes more Navajo or other tribes' cultural elements in mind when I start a plot. In Thief of Time I wanted to make readers aware of Navajo attitude toward the dead respect for burial sites.

What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone.