Cell phones, alas, have pretty much ruined train travel, which I used to love. I could read or even sketch notes for what I was working on.

I have a picture of the Pont Neuf on a wall in my apartment, but i know that Paris is really on the closet shelf, in the box next to the sleeping bag, with the rest of my diaries.

The romantic appeal of solar sailing has ensured that its advocates consistently come from the worlds of both science fiction and science fact.

Letters had always defeated distance, but with the coming of e-mail, time seemed to be vanquished as well.

Ive always got a novel under way, but if I try to work on it every day, exclusively, I falter. So I always keep more than one thing going.

I actually think that Bandbox, by far the silliest of my books, is the best constructed of them.

To some extent the history of plagiarism is a history of notebooks.

The late Tom Wicker's biography of Nixon, called 'One of Us, ' is really quite good: you see the biographer discovering dimensions of sympathy for his subject that he hadn't expected to feel.

His mind was betraying him. Phantoms not heard from in a thousand years rousing slowly from their sleep.

Being who you are for ever is the price you pay for im­mor­tal­ity.

Once one follows the ideals of any specific ideology, they lose some ability to see the world outside of those pre-filtered glasses.

Maybe the nails are a little stubby and gnawed on, but I definitely do not have man hands.

Clarity (always) trumps persuasion

A number of poems don't work alone. They need to fit together to work.

I was in love many times. This is very good for a woman.

Work always as if you were a master, expect from yourself a masterpiece.

Sleeping only six hours a night for a week in a row will make you feel on that eighth day as if you'd gotten no sleep at all. Seven and a half to eight hours remains the sweet spot.

I urge you to hold fast to your standards. I plead with you not to waver.