The things that you know more about than you want to know are very useful.

It's easy to create a country, all you have to do is to think of a name for it

I start early in the morning. I'm usually out in the woods with the dog as soon as it gets light; then I drink a whole lot of tea and start as early as I can, and I go as long as I can.

You don't want to depend on an editor. If you want to regret something for the rest of your life, you want to make sure you're responsible for it.

The desires of the heart...are as crooked as a corkscrew.

I was under the influence of the early modern masters, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck and Hemingway, especially, when I was a kid. I reacted against writers like Barth and John Hawkes. I did not care for the post-modernist stuff; my allegiance was to realism.

If you haven't fought for your life for something you want, you don't know what's life all about.