Shoes are the first adult machines we are given to master.

I've never been a fast reader. I'm fickle; I don't finish books I start; I put a book aside for five, ten years and then take it up again.

I’ve always thought of myself as shy.

The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added component of sociable harmony.

E.B. White's essays are the best things I've read about Maine - especially the one in which he's not sure if he can go out sailing any more in his sloop.

In the novel, I can change things and simplify, and make events work towards whatever meanings I'm trying to get at more efficiently.

Spoon the sauce over the ice cream. It will harden. This is what you have been working for.