People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny.

I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me.

Bookstores, like libraries, are the physical manifestation of the wide world's longest, most thrilling conversation.

Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.

The line of gray along the horizon is brighter now, and with the coming light I feel a certainty: that there is, despite our wild imaginings, only one life. The ghostly others, no matter how real they seem, no matter how badly we need them, are phantoms. The one life we're left with is sufficient to fill and refill our imperfect hearts with joy, and then to shatter them. And it never, ever lets up.

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?