I had some bad jobs when I was young. Writing is not one of them. If you're fortunate enough to reach my age, to still be writing, you have to be grateful, and I am. I've been lucky. For many years, all I've done is writing, and it's all I've ever wanted to do.

I think sometimes writers must attempt to communicate the incommunicable, because, whether they wish it or not, they're the ones to whom it falls.

A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.

Most of us have loved. And the terror for a writer is that readers will forgive you so much, but they won't forgive you one false note about love, about which they too are expert.

It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

I think writing should be about change.