If my favorite, most comfortable place is by our fireplace in cold weather, expedient places are on an airplane, in a waiting room or even waiting in line; frequently these days, while on the phone having been 'put on hold.'

The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.

Not what the mind sees, but what the mind imagines the eye must see.

That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?

Impossible not to imagine the dead observing us. Our love for them a soft, shimmering gossamar that trails behind us.

I feel a terrible loss when I (eventually must) complete a work of fiction.

I come from people who did not go to college. They didn't even finish high school. People who one might call ordinary Americans who are very hardworking.