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

Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do, to be recognised for one's accomplishments and hard work - in a way that old familiar death does not.

Vets do what doctors used to - diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind you that these things happen and that in life we are also in the midst of death.

You cannot be an egomaniac on the horse. If you lose your temper and start beating him, either you will destroy him, or he will destroy you. As soon as you start riding horses seriously, you're being disciplined on a daily basis about how ignorant you are and what there is left for you to learn.

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

Like most of the educated, I do harbor a fondness for the sins of my ignorant past.

A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.