There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned.

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

Whereas she wished more of the population were better educated, she also believed that education was largely wasted on the majority of the people she met.

In an episodic treatment, such as a teleplay is, you have the ability to do what you can do in a novel, which is flash back and flash forward in the same instant, in the same scene, in the same voice.

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.

…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.