The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar is the test of their power.

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say 'Can he name a kitten?'

It's the writers' job to make it positive. It's my job to make it real.

If someone's going to talk about me I'd want it to be positively. The way many write you'd think only bad things were interesting. If we don't think positive what's the use? It's a lot more fun you know.

Since I can barely write two books a year the best solution seems to be co-author projects. My goal isn't to get another writer to clone me... it's more to produce a book that shares my vision of positive fun entertainment.

The two things I was positive about in life were that I was going to be a teacher at a boarding school or an operative with the CIA posted abroad. I could write a book about all the things I was sure about.

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't they want that positive uptempo thing.

As writers and readers as sinners and citizens our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably haven't read them.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice heroism war politics and family struggle.