Things have not changed as much as we would like to think they have. Or maybe we're just in another one of the divided moments in the country. The late '60s certainly was one of them, the Civil War being another, but I'm hard-pressed to think of too many.

No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There's so much other material to write about.

The fiction is not autobiographical. Maybe to some extent it is, of course.

For some reason, all my characters come to me with their names attached to them. I never have to search for the names.

We have missed him in the sunshine, in the storm, in the twilight, ever since.

Money's important. Everyone cares about money. And when you don't have money, money becomes the overriding obsession of your life.

I can never say 'why' about anything I do. I suppose I can say 'how' and 'when' and 'what.' But 'why' is impenetrable to me.