A youthful American voice isn’t particularly challenging – I’ve been a young American, and they’re all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School.

Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable.

He’s not rewarding us by talking to us. He’s talking to us because He has something to say to us directly, as opposed to the things He says to all humanity.

I don’t think anyone is more intrinsically holy. People experience God in many ways; and it seems to me that God does what the rest of us do: He chooses the means that best gets His message across.

I have read only the first ‘Harry Potter’ book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.

My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn’t load a revolver.

Online publication is fine with me, in part because I hope to collect those stories later.

Whether the medium is ready for consumers is better judged by those consumers. I sometimes read online – but not often. The stigma is attached to pay scales. Much online publication is no pay or small pay.

You seem to think that the only genuine existence evil can have is conscious existence – that no one is evil unless he admits it to himself. I disagree.