We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don't get the flavor of the local events, the local news as much.

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

How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors.

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.

An urban novelist never minds a little decay.

The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to be morally good, but it is not considered moral if the highest values of a society are adherence to rules and traditional mores, the maintenance of hierarchical relationships, and absolute ideas of right and wrong. Any society based on the latter will find novels inherently immoral and subversive.