I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

I always know more about the ending, even the aftermath to the ending, than I know about the beginning. And so there's a construction that works from back to front.

Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy.

No touching Baby Jesus.” “But we’re his parents!” proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation. “Mary Beth,” Barb Wiggin said, “if you touch the Baby Jesus, I’m putting you in a cow costume.

A part of adolescence is feelimg that there's no one else around who's enough like youself to understand you.

I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.

Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.