He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably.

I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell.

...aware, as always, that the truth isn't much of substitute for a good answer.

I'll tell you one thing, though. It's a terrible thing to be a disappointment to a good woman.

Whatever you're working on, take small bites. The task will not be overwhelming if you can reduce it to its smallest component.

When I start getting close to the end of a novel, something registers in the back of my mind for the next novel, so that I usually don't write, or take notes. And I certainly don't begin. I just allow things to percolate for a while.

Were it not for Occam's Razor, which always demands simplicity, I'd be tempted to believe that human beings are more influenced by distant causes than immediate ones. This would especially be true of overeducated people, who are capable of thinking past the immediate, of becoming obsessed by the remote. It's the old stuff, the conflicts we've never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.