Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having...

As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral.

So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn’t forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can’t...

It’s pure hackwork. … Here it is: I produce fast, I can do it on a deadline, and I usually have something to say about anything.

Still others reflected on how quickly the food could be snatched from a man’s table, or the child from a woman’s breast, or the wife from a man’s bedcloset, that no strength of grasp could...

Your sons weren’t made to like you. That’s what grandchildren are for.

Upstairs, in the cupboard, he had a box of things he had saved as a boy and a young man. He hadn’t looked into it in twenty years or more. Nothing fancy or valuable, but...

accepted his idea that the audience for a quality novel might not be large enough to support the author by means of commerce; this idea is a truism today, but it was new, even revolutionary,...

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

I suggest that it be used like a trunk full of fabric samples or a box of costume jewelry – it is not to be read through from beginning to end in search of a...

There were no toys under the bed–that wasn’t why he liked it. Why he liked it was that there wasn’t anything under the bed–no chickens, no Joey, no Eloise, no sheep, no “no”s. He could...

[Most interestingly of all, she attempts to show that the novel as a form] has a certain political coloring, because it has to have a certain organization. … that’s a statement that says, ‘conformity is...

This is true, at the least, that no veil of beauty hides the evils from our sight.

Oh, that sound? I’m in the hot tub, reading a novel.

…I had been with my father so constantly for so long that I knew less and less about him with every passing year. Every meaningful image was jumbled together with the countless moments of our...

In a society that promotes conformity, … novel-reading ”’ one person experiencing both the mind of another person and her own mind experiencing ”’ is a subversive force.

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.

My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that’s basically a conservative view of life.

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be...

It’s pure hackwork. Here it is: I produce fast, I can do it on a deadline, and I usually have something to say about anything.

Had I faced all the facts It seemed like I had but actually you never know just by remembering how many there were to have faced.

he aspired to produce something simultaneously less vulgar and less formless than the novels of the great Victorians, and … he wished his work to elevate the novel to the status of art.

The body, the mind, and the spirit don’t form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body isn’t below the mind and the spirit; from the point...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.

You know what getting married is? It’s agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you...

Look at Me.

My mind is like a room where the door swings free in the breeze, and many visitors come and go and stay and vanish as they will.

Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.

Just look at movies. As movies are getting bigger and bigger and more expensive to produce, the screens that people are looking at them are getting smaller.

I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you’ve bought in your life, and you...

When a novel has two hundred thousand words, then it is possible for the reader to experience two hundred thousand delights, and to turn back to the first page of the book and experience them...

It’s a gimmick. It’s more fun. Usually, you’re just standing there, trying to look compelling in some way and not succeeding. It can look like a mug shot. The author can look, not exactly like...

I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later. I don’t think it is years...

I’ve been entirely opposed to it since Day one. The next practical thing to do is to get out, and since I don’t imagine we’re going to clean up after us, the Iraqis are going...

My reading had a wonderful effect and it worked in several ways on different levels. It inspired in me the idea that it was OK to go on as a novelist in good faith and...

Almonds. Apricots. Avocadoes. Some peaches I don’t know. Grapefruit. Lemones. Probably oranges.

Another thing I discovered,