“One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.”

“Virginia Woolf came along in the early part of the century and essentially said through her writing, yes, big books can be written about the traditional big subjects. There is war. There is...”

“Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I'm finishing, even if it's turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writer...”

“Beauty is a whore, I like money better.”

“I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.”

“You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.”

“Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest.”

“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us...”

“We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extrava...”