I know there are writers who feel unhappy with domesticity and who even manufacture domestic turmoil in order to have something to write about. With me, though, the happier I feel, the better I write.

A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride.

One of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.

There's a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that's romance.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

... Oceanic malaise. I never saw anyone reading anything more demanding than a comic book. I never heard any youth express an interest in science or art. No one even talked politics. It was all idleness, and whenever I asked someone a question, no matter how simple, no matter how well the person spoke English, there was always a long pause before I got a reply, and I found these Pacific pauses maddening. And there was giggling but no humor - no wit. It was just foolery.

Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it's gone.