Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.

the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.

It's a taboo subject. How the dead are betrayed by the living. We who are living--we who have survived--understand that our guilt is what links us to the dead. At all times we can hear them calling to us, a growing incredulity in their voices, You will not forget me -- will you? How can you forget me? I have no one but you.

Novels usually evolve out of 'character.' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.

As soon as I moved to Princeton in 1978, I became fascinated by local history, much of it Revolutionary War-era; and I became fascinated by the presidency of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University.

Your punishment if you're a woman. Not loved enough.

My writing is full of lives I might have led.