The excitement of anticipation was *almost* equal to the thrill of lovemaking.

He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

I was brought up in a community, in a family that valued such things as good manners, and I still do.

The object of war is to survive it.

Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.

No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin - only four years older than I am - everything, or what little I could discover about him.

I still believe in getting married in churches and baptizing children. I go through those motions.