I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House

I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much.

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.

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