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.

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral.

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.

Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out.

Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.

When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.