If you look at the best-seller list, it is mostly thrillers. Very few books attempt to create an image of the life we live. I knew there were writers who wore tweed coats and lived in Connecticut and somehow made a living, and that's what I aimed to do. I've tried to write as well as I can with books that say something to any reader.

Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.

Nothing feels worse than other people's good times.

It's been the same story ever since I can remember, ever since Wilson - the Republicans don't do a thing for the little man.

Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot.

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

School is where you go between when your parents can't take you and industry can't take you.