You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one.

Our memory is a monster; you forget it - it does not.

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

The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.

I have no respect for the right-to-life position. But when you legislate personal belief, you're in violation of freedom of religion. The Catholic Church may espouse its opinion on abortion to the members of its congregation. But they are in violation of separation of church and state when they try to proselytize their abortion politics on people who are not Catholics.

The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.

You take every opportunity given you in this world, even if you have too many opportunities. One day, the opportunities stop, you know.