I don't like that word [memoir]. Whenever my publishers have wanted to use it, I've told them to take it away.

It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not.

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

I've been very lucky in this second marriage. It's just luck. It's absolute luck. And I can only marvel at it. So many other things could have happened that didn't, so overall I feel blessed.

You can't ever approach a book as a complete virgin, certainly not if you're a critic. There is a lot of bad faith out there. That's why I finally trained myself not to look at this stuff anymore, because it doesn't do me any good to see myself either praised or attacked.

I am very scared at the beginning of each book, because I've never written it before. I feel I have to teach myself how to do it.

Every man is the author of his own life.