Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.

Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.

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

After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life folk sit about the fire and stay warm, for the chill of death is upon them, and even the thickest bearskin can't keep off the shivering.

Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind; one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

I learned why 'out riding alone' is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.