As much fun as it is to read a book, writing a book is one level deeper than that.

There's a big anti-intellectual strain in the American south, and there always has been. We're not big on thought.

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

I think innocence is something that adults project upon children that's not really there.

When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business.

It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.