I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life's mystery and unpredictability, of life's generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation.

In his 30 years of broadcasting and publishing fiction, Garrison Keillor has set the laugh bar pretty high.

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

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.

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

I was an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents.

Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance.