But on the other hand, I don't actively seek out stories or hunt them down.

A couple of years I taught in graduate programs at NYU and Columbia, in the early eighties.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

Like Neanderthals, men prefer to hunt alone or, if in a pack, at the head of it. Women, whether in the field or in a campfire, are collaborative, and when they hunt...they work together.

Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.

Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.

And...I think that's what life is all about, actually, about children and flowers.

I shout at him to remind him of his duties. That does not mean that I do not trust him at all.

And one bad mistake which is called love..Can drive you insane till rapture..

In the city, we work until quitting time. On the farm, we work until the job is finished.

It matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.

A diagnosis is burden enough without being burdened by secrecy and shame.

I am not in love / But I'm open to persuasion.

Search out the wisdom of nature, there is depth in all her doings; she seemeth prodigal of power, yet her rules are the maxims of frugality.

Training for a marathon is much like climbing a ladder. Each ring is a short-term goal that must be met in sequence in order to reach the long-term goal at the top of the ladder.

If you are being run out of town, get in front of the crowd and make it look like a parade.