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.

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.

The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.

I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn't. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff.

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.

Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works.

Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay on the steading and mind the cows and be content with such days as are left to one and cease to wonder about life everlasting.