I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.

When we were children we were errant enough to wish to be birds for the day but there's nothing easier to lose than playfulness.

That is simply the most beautiful publishing office in the world, with that cranky old building in that wonderful park.

We set this house on fire forgetting that we live within.

The world that used to nurse us now keeps shouting inane instructions. That's why I ran to the woods.

I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.

Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.