If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.

I am often thanked by people for inventing the term traditionally built. The people who give me thanks for this are often traditionally built themselves.

To lose a child ... was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.

I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.

Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner..., things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.

There are old mycologists and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists.

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.