A person could spend most of a lifetime in retrospective terror, thinking of all the things one nearly didn't do.

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

He was getting that look he gets, oh boy, like Here comes Moses tromping down off of Mount Syanide with ten fresh ways to wreck your life.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.

I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.

it's the thing you fear most that walks beside you all the time.