The White House is giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings. You know some of these jokes just write themselves.

I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right.

It's part of a writer's profession as it's part of a spy's profession to prey on the community to which he's attached to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely.

I love the paranormal because there every genre I write can become one beacon for my imagination.

The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination.

In those days it didn't take much imagination to come up with something that required great lyric development skills. You just thought of an experience that you might have gone through and write it down.

I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings stretch my imagination earn money.

Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also in a way gave me permission to write about northern Montana.

I don't know if Jim was a major part of that or not. He is one of a small group of real storytellers. He has enormous imagination and ability to write. I'm glad he's coming back. It's going to be good for the show.

I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.