I have only one bit of advice to beginning writers: be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another stretch of objective standards might be called history.

The extreme geniality of San Francisco's economic, intellectual and political climate makes it the most varied and challenging city in the United States.

I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.

Writers turn dreams into print.

We are never prepared for what we expect.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.