Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!

One of the things that Ivar knew about Mrs. Walker was that she would only tell him what she knew if he asked the right question, so he spent a portion of his time meditating over what he might ask Mrs. Walker and how he might phrase the question.

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.

A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.

Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn't stand the news, I knew that if the missile were launched, mortality would arrive in half an hour, so I spent a lot of my childhood feeling that I was 30 minutes from being dead.

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.