I have noticed before that there is a category of acquaintanceship that is not friendship or business or romance, but speculation, fascination.

I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your characters, and write it from their point of view. It's really fun. It's not erotic.

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.

I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

Some people do wait their whole lives for something, and it's only when that thing arrives that they find out that they've been waiting rather than living.