We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

In terms of work, I never felt that I've done it right. I always want to have done it differently, to have done it better, a different way.

In the early years, you fight because you don't understand each other. In the later years, you fight because you do.

I have never started a novel - I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel - I've never written one without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing.

Lancaster, California ... that promised land sometimes called 'the west coast of Iowa.

Writing is the act of saying "I," of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying "listen to me, see it my way, change your mind."

I was in love with New York. I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that way again.