Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?

Anyone at any age is able to tell the story of his or her life with authority.

We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.

I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Maybe that says something about bookstore clerks.

I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them.

What we call fiction is the ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special vocabularies....Fiction is democratic, it reasserts the authority of the single mind to make and remake the world.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.