Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.

Every novel deals with social problems. It can't help it because the protagonist must come in conflict with his group. So the author has to offer an analysis of how the group and the protagonist fit. Otherwise, the reader will just say, "This makes no sense," and will put it away.

Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value knowledge. It was an exciting field.

Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.

a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.

Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds up. But there are other sorts of trains, and other sorts of novels. They rush by in the dark; passengers framed in the lighted windows are smiling and enjoying themselves.

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.