I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

People forget years and remember moments.

When I was teaching at Harvard in the 1970s, I went to Project Incorporated in Cambridge and took photography classes. I didn't even know how to aim the camera in those days.

Because I don’t work with an outline, writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock.

Clichés so often befall vain people.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

There is some reason, obviously, that you are drawn to your material, but the way in which you explore it might come to be quite different from what you would expect.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male writers, there's often a novel I admire, but not all of their works.

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.

Indomitable will, purposeful action

The day you believe ‘you know everything’ you have just experienced the biggest failure of your life! Recovery might be difficult!

Give me a part in a film, and I'll show you I'm not just a heartthrob.

When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, "Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves."

Is not Fire a Body heated so hot as to emit Light copiously? For what else is a red hot Iron than Fire? And what else is a burning Coal than red hot Wood?

I would never accuse Willie Brown of slowing down, because he never does.

April is a fun month.

What shall we do about the Abortion Bill?" A: "Pay it!

A man is never too weak or too wounded to fight. If his cause is greater than his own life.

If you love yourself, you love others. If you hate yourself, you hate others.