It's gratifying that it does; I love to give readings.

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 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.

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.

You might as well laugh at yourself, everyone else is.

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

[On Katharine Hepburn's stage performance:] She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B.

The three chief causes of divorce are men, women, and marriage.

Gratitude is the attitude that sets the altitude for living.

Nobody as of today can produce any oral or written statement from me talking about changing the constitution.

I have a deep, deep love for sneakers.

Confidence is its own security.

I'm happy to keep doing science and being a mentor to anyone who asks for advice.

One opens the inner doors of one's heart to the infinite silences of the Spirit, out of whose abysses love wells up without fail and gives itself to all.