The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life led by human beings; the second was that human beings could survive a life in hotels.

This is a writer’s lesson: To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.

I have a friend who says that reviewers are the tickbirds of the literary rhinoceros-but he is being kind. Tickbirds perform a valuable service to the rhino and the rhino hardly notices the birds.

wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.

All his life he would hold this moment as exemplary of what love was. It was not wanting anything more, nor was it expecting people to exceed what they had just accomplished; it was simply feeling so complete.

It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where and how a story ended.

If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.