Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

Like so many writers I started writing stories because I didn't have much time for anything else.

You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that is already reserved for them.

Perhaps that is why the novel flourished in England. You had these communities that would stay put and people would see one another all the time and cause one another to change and have the opportunity to observe the changes over time.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.