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.

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.

Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out.

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

Respect and fear are two different things.

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!

The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.