In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature.

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but to a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teen-aged boy finding them, and having them speak to him. The review, the stacks in Brentano's, are just hurdles to get over, to place the books on that shelf.

Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.

My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me-to give the mundane its beautiful due.

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.

As souls must cry when they awaken in tiny babies and find themselves far from heaven

Writers may be disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.