The ending is one of my blackest, utterly without hope of any sort.

The ending is one of my blackest, utterly without hope of any sort.

A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between that which is speculation and that which is fact.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters.

All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James.