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

When people leave, they always seem to scoop themselves out of you.

The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.

Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states.

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

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.

I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.