I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second, or one sixteenth, or one one-hundred-and-twenty-eighth. Snap your fingers; a snapshot's faster.

I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.