What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.

People regard art too highly, and history not enough

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.

When writing a novel, I'm not smart enough to know how to foreshadow something if I don't know what it is.

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.

So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.

I have no respect for the right-to-life position, though I have every respect for an individual who says, "I could never have that procedure, I could never see a film or read a book about that procedure." It doesn't bother me if people feel that way.