Obviously, there is pleasure in the execution of any sort of art, and using language, as Nabokov felt also, is an exquisite process.

This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

There is something thrilling in the mimesis of life's surprising unfolding.

I've never given up. I've always kept going. I don't feel that I could afford to give up. That would be the beginning of the end.

Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.