Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.

Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.

Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I would wake up in terror in a way that I would never wake up while working on a novel.

A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

If there's anything Trollope novels always take seriously, it is money - how it flows from one character to another, how it is managed, who has it, who deserves it, and what it means to a character, male or female.