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

The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.

In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange.

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

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 only real nation is humanity

What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I'm interested in how ordinary people live their lives