In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices

I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young

The writer works in a lonely way.

Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.

Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American.

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody

The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves.