We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.

In my years, I have seen that people must be their own gods and make their own good fortune. The bad will come or not come anyway.

I'm a fifty-three-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer.

When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. I"m trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.