God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time

At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done.

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.