On genre:

“I’ve sort of made a reputation by high-stepping my way out of genre. As soon as somebody says, “He does this,” I’m not standing there anymore.”

“The only thing that matters to me about my stories is that they’re entertaining and they’re funny. And I tend to get bored easily, so I generally throw something supernatural in.”

On humor:

“There aren’t that many funny books out there. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s hard. Or maybe it requires a certain skill, and the people with that skill are working in television and movies.”

“The reason I’m writing funny books is that I wish there were more.”

On research:

“I wrote that book [Fluke] so I’d be able to hang out with guys who poke whales with sticks…I wanted to write a whale book because I wanted to learn about the animals and the people who work with them.”

“If I’m going to ask people to believe all this wild crap like islanders worshiping the ghost of a World War Two bomber pilot and talking fruit bats and all the rest, then the real stuff has to resonate. It has to feel real.”

“As an author, you spend a lot of time by yourself in a room making clicky noises. It gets pretty insulated. You realize pretty early on in your career that even if this goes well, you could spend all your life in a room alone. Unless you pick projects that are going to get you out doing things, you’re not going to actually live your life. You’re just going to write about life.”

On writing about Jesus for Lamb:

“Sometimes you’ve got to throw the gauntlet down and say, Can I pull this off?“

“I just stuck to what he said and then made him human, which was supposed to be the whole point. His sacrifice didn’t mean anything if he was a god. It only meant something if he was human; you had to make him human.”

On writing:

“I always want to keep my eye on the idea that no matter what my message might be, if it’s not funny it’s not effective. If it’s not entertaining, it’s not effective.”

“If you envision it, all you have to do is tell what you see, but if you try to write action then it’s as if you’re holding strings you have to move this guy’s hand over here and that guy’s hand over there. It’s much harder.”

read the interview here.