If you get the landscape right, the characters will step out of it, and they'll be in the right place.

Anyway, there's something wrong with everybody and it's up to you to know what you can handle.

I wish I knew how to quit you.

Archie was an expert at dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.

I would rather be dead than not read

Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.

You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.