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

In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that's basically a conservative view of life.

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

All equestrians, if they last long enough, learn that riding in whatever form is a lifelong sport and art, an endeavor that is both familiar and new every time you take the horse out of his stall or pasture.

Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.