You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life.

Appealingness is inversely proportional to attainability.

The illusion is an agreement between the reader and writer that this [story] will be like life. The emotional temperature drops when you have footnotes.

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.

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.

The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia.