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.

People forget years and remember moments.

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.

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

He is insatiable in love. His wife is a great cook.

Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.

It's incredibly unfair. You don't see a lot of 60-year-old women with 20-year-old men onscreen.

The drama takes a toll on you.

For me, it's always been the initial business - just getting a word down, any words down, on a blank piece of paper. Once I've done that, I'm away. Beginning is one half of the deed.

I don't need fame any more. People are less interested in me in terms of celebrity. I'm happy to see a new generation being the media focus. I'm happy my day is done. It's over.

I will offer to Him both my tears and my exultation. Nothing we offer to Him will be lost.

I have family dotted everywhere - Dad's in California; I've got aunts in Scotland and Virginia; family in Kansas City; family in Manchester and London.

The ego's phenomenal existence is transcended when you dive into the source from where the 'I'-thought rises

Cookies are unbelievable. I have a problem, I eat like, four to five a day.