The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to be minimal but at the same time be a little overfull - to encourage them to do a kind of poetic work.

Whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it - every word has a big question mark over it.

She said America was a spoiled child ignorant of grief.

Even the written history [of Abraham Lincoln's times] is poorly understood by most people.

The story sometimes writes you into a corner.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

The main thing a childhood in the Church did for me, I think, was set up the universe as a moral system. Once you've seen it that way, it always seems that way.