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.

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.

Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.

English majors understand human nature better than economists do.

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.