I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads.

I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all.

Write from what you know into what you don't know.

The word career is a divisive word. It's a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.

I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices.

I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.

If you're old and you're healthy and you're active - I don't mean you have to be politically active - if you remain interested in other people and the world, then you live as well as your health will allow.