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?

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

I've known several cases of writers who decide to write about something and they research the hell out of it and when they're ready to write, they can't move because they are so burdened. I start writing. Whatever I need somehow comes to hand.

I have committed many sins in my life. This precise sin-the sin against poets-is without absolution.

The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.

I worry about images. Images are what things mean.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.