I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back.

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along.

Imagination has to do with one's awareness of the reality of other people as well as of one's own reality. Imagination is a bridge between the provincialism of the self and the great world.

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl.

I don't know what makes a writer's voice. It's dozens of things. There are people who write who don't have it. They're tone-deaf, even though they're very fluent. It's an ability, like anything else, being a doctor or a veterinarian, or a musician.

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.

My father brought me a box of books once when I was about three and a half or four. I remember the carton they were in and the covers with illustrations by Newell C. Wyeth.