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

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.

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.

When writers stop believing in their own stories, readers tend to sense it.

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.

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen

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