It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

Life has a funny way of becoming ordinary as soon as it can.

Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure.

I wrote every day between the ages of 12 and 20 when I stopped because I went to Barcelona, where life was too exciting to write.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

I live in words. I like looking at things, but I don't have a strong visual imagination.

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

I would rather live a joyful simple life, doing what I love, than to be unhappy and rich.

When we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God.

Country ham is baked whole, usually with a glaze, sometimes studded with cloves, and served as the centerpiece of Christmas and Easter feasts.

I love actors, and I'm very protective of them. I trust them. It's a mutual trust.

Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.

You can Laugh or you can cry, it changes nothing

Our constituents paid into Social Security, and they want it paid back to them when they retire. Cutting Social Security benefits that Americans have earned should always be a last resort.

In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'.

Don't cry upon you losses Don't mesure today with tommorows Don't trust to passed and coming day Believe in now - and be happy today.