I'd always rather stand or fall on my own mistakes. There's nothing worse than looking back, in a published book, at a line edit or a copy edit that you felt queasy about and didn't want to take, but took anyway.

But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.

Still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life.

To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone.

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.