If you feel a bump on page one hundred, it may be you went off on page fifty.

We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.

The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves.

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.

I've always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they're relations, they have a place in the American family. They're the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They're the embarrassments to decorum and good taste.

Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.