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

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.

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs.

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.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

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

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

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

It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

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

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

By God, Lainna, have you truly no notion how badly I want you, then?""Oh, but did you not once tell me the anticipation is half the pleasure of it?

Time doth run with calm and silent foot, Shortening my days and thread of vital life.

Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night.

Anybody who has ever been in business, anybody who has ever paid bills, anybody who has ever lived in a serious adult life knows that indebtedness is a killer.

I don't want to rip families apart. I don't want to be sending parents away from children.

A good speaker does not stutter.

I have named myself an unofficial ambassador for Australia and I have the biggest mouth on Earth.

It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

Premiering a new opera is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do, and opening nights of any opera are always pretty stressful.

With Schubert, a lot of the melodies are very simple, but he's in this groove. He's in touch with his heart.