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

We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don't get the flavor of the local events, the local news as much.

Respect and fear are two different things.

The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.

I readily admit it is easy to make of horses what we will. Silent, in some ways reserved, they allow us to train them, and to project our ideas upon them; to ride and drive them, and to make them symbolic, perhaps to a greater degree than any other species.

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.

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.