Being on TV is like being alive, only more so.

The fact that we still live well cannot ease the feeling that we no longer live nobly.

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.

We're past the age of heroes and hero kings. ... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.

It's not up to us what we learn, but merely whether we learn through joy or through pain.

Being a famous writer is a little like being a tall dwarf. You're on the edge of normality.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.