When old settlers say 'One has to understand the country,' what they mean is, 'You have to get used to our ideas about the native.' They are saying in effect, 'Learn our ideas, or otherwise get out; we don't want you.'

How boring these emotions are that we're caught in and can't get free of, no matter how much we want to.

The 1960s was probably the first time in history that young people were recognized as a big group of consumers and as a commercial proposition for Madison Avenue. Advertising played a major role in creating the ethos of that era - the idea that, "Here it is, and you can have it now." I know that many kids thought that the ethos of the 1960s was due to their own peculiar virtues, but, in fact, it had a lot to do with the realities of the marketplace and commerce.

For there is never any way to go but in.

For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.

Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment.

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.