Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until he dies.

By his very profession, a serious fiction writer is a vendor of the sensuous particulars of life, a perceiver and handler of things. His most valuable tools are his sense and his memory; what happens in his mind is primarily pictures.

In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

Every book that anyone sets out on is a voyage of discovery that may discover nothing. Any voyager may be lost at sea, like John Cabot. Nobody can teach the geography of the undiscovered. All he can do is encourge the will to explore, plus impress upon the inexperienced a few of the dos and don'ts of voyaging.

Faith can reclaim deserts as well as move mountains.

We write to make sense of it all.

Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?