Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself.

The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

Violence is the way stupid people try to level the playing field.

The world is divided up into two kinds of people - those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don't.

I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge.

The professional guts a book through - in full knowledge that what he is doing is not very good. Not to work is to exhibit a failure of nerve.

There are two types of people ... the scrutinizers and the scrutinized

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

… For everything precious and pure coming in our lives should be treated likewise.

This is a case without a body.The body does not come into it at all.

When you get to the end of your rope tie a knot in it and hang on.

I'm grateful my teenaged daughter is healthy and well and for the work I do to make a living.

For a married couple to expect perfection for each other is unrealistic.

It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel - they get to know each other better.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

I always look at a girls shoes. And if they’re wearing heels, i wonder how she would look if she was just wearing those.

I don't just want to be the best black player or the best Asian player. I want to be the best golfer ever.

The object of all life is development; and everything that lives has an inalienable right to all the development it is capable of attaining