She was good at talking with young people. She seemed to view them as interesting foreigners.

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.

Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.

I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns

Everything was leveled, there were no extremes of joy or sorrow any more but only habit, routine, ancient family names and rites and customs, slow careful old people moving cautiously around furniture that had sat in the same positions for fifty years.

I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.