I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God.

The kinds of good friends I have are people who are perfectly willing to have me say I'll see them in six months, and live right next door.

I remember how surprised I was when my first novel was about to be published and I was informed that I could be sued for anything any one of my characters said. 'But I often don't agree with what they say,' I protested. The lawyer was not interested in the clear distinction I make between my own voice and the voices of my characters. Neither, I have found, are many of my readers.

Now that our sexual experience is increasingly available to us as a subject for contemplation, we have to extend our language to express our new consciousness until we have as many words for sexuality as the Eskimo has for snow, that pervasive, beautiful, and mortal climate in which we all live.

The real power of books is their deep companionability. We learn from them as we learn from the deep companionability of love to know our own hearts and minds better.

It's not the length but the quality of life that matters to me. It has always been important to me to write one sentence at a time, to live every day as if it were my last and judge it in those terms, often badly, not because it lacked grand gesture or grand passion but because it failed in the daily virtues of self-discipline, kindness, and laughter. It is love, very ordinary, human love, and not fear, which is the good teacher and the wisest judge.

If we don't bear witness as citizens, as people, as individuals, the right that we have had to life is sacrificed. There is a silence, instead of a speaking presence.