Nothing is accidental in the universe - this is one of my Laws of Physics - except the entire universe itself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.

The greatest realities are physical and economic, all the subtleties of life come afterward.

I am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and there may come a time when I will dread giving up a novel at all.

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

I work very slowly. It's like building a ladder, where you're building your own ladder rung by rung, and you're climbing the ladder. It's not the best way to build a ladder, but I don't know any other way.

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.

The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure.