Let's look at what the books are that are being produced. More and more they are being made like movies. To sell. They are being tested out.

I always write the best that I can. And I won't publish it until I have done it right.

If a writer is honest, if what is at stake for him can seem to matter to his readers, then his work may be read. But a writer will work anyway, as I do, and as I have, in part to explore this terra incognita, this dangerous ground I seem to need to risk.

I'm an amateur, so I read what's interesting to me.

I have found myself writing poetry shortly after I retired. Which I hadn't done in forty years.

What to know about pain is how little we do to deserve it, how simple it is to give, how hard to lose.

It's hard to read real fiction. It takes time. It takes a sustained attention.