To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.

What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.

You have two choices in life. You either die or do something with your time. You're going to be doing something - why not write?

The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.

I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else.

Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it's more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody's interested in a single.