Seriously, the world is changing so quickly that if you had any more than 80 years of change I don't see how you could stand it psychologically.

And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight-- isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before?

Nothing got inside the head without becoming pictures.

The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

Deploring other people--their lack of perfection--had always been our sport.

It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.

When I was younger, the main struggle was to be a 'good writer.' Now I more or less take my writing abilities for granted, although this doesn't mean I always write well.