There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.

Novelists never have to footnote.

English majors understand human nature better than economists do.

I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.

Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

Some novelists are luckier than others in the eras of their formative intellectual years, but all Weltanschauungs return, which means that most novelists have at least a chance of a revival.

Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works.