An urban novelist never minds a little decay.

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

a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.

Sinclair Lewis may be ripe for a revival; his books raise several interesting issues of art and fashion.

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

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

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