Oversized houses, like oversized cars, seem to be a particularly American fixation.

I remember thinking that a girdle was barbaric, and that never in a million years would I treat myself like a sleeping bag being shoved into a stuff sack. Never! Instead, I would run marathons and work out and be in perfect shape and reject the tyranny of the girdle forever.

When I still lived in Manhattan, people-watching was my hobby, and I spent many Sunday afternoons eating up the scene from a window seat at a Starbucks on Broadway.

When you're researching you're learning. When you're writing, you're teaching.

I would argue that it might be easier to endure loneliness than to endure the idea that you might disappear.

Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.

Every corny thing that's said about living with nature - being in harmony with the earth, feeling the cycle of the seasons - happens to be true.