“If you write a book set in the past about something that happened east of the Mississippi, it's a 'historical novel.' If you write about something that took place west of the Mississippi, it's a 'Western'- and somehow regarded as a lesser work. I write historical novels about the frontier.”

“Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.”

“Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.”

“If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.”

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”

“But in the West few men would risk bothering a woman. It was the one thing the frontier would not accept - Kilkenny”

“I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.”