Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames the issues further. But that is America, especially these days.

I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your characters, and write it from their point of view. It's really fun. It's not erotic.

Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.

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.

With preference came point of view; with point of view, personality; with personality, uniqueness; with uniqueness, grief.