I never had the goal of being rich, and I have never been super-ambitious.  A newspaper’s big enough for me.  As long as I was able to make a living from my writing, I was happy.  My ambition was to have people consider my writing truly great.  Look, I need to be writing because you can’t be more alive than when you’re climbing into other lives in other worlds, whether it’s the Galapagos Islands or the Arctic circle.  I’ve felt rich from the beginning – from the day I split the $40,000 advance for my first book.

—Michael D’Orso