Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him.

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.

"But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart

Now that I'm on my fourth book on values, I feel a bit inadequate. I'm using a little bit of Woody-Allen-esque self-deprecation, but basically, that is true; it is hard to study legends like Twain, Socrates, King, Shaw, Gandhi and Keller and not feel like an underachiever.

A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.

Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.

Bob Hope like Mark Twain had a sense of humor that was uniquely American and like Twain we'll likely not see another like him.

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain Earnest Hemingway Jack London Harriett Beecher Stowe Pearl Buck Charles Dickens Rudyard Kipling Alfred Lord Tennyson to name a few.