Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get.

A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

What is money, after all? Almost nothing, when one has a sufficiency of it.

The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.

I don't make a distinction between men and women. To me they are just people.

It's great people still care about books, and it's great you can still fashion a life from literature.

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.