Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman.

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.

I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness love.

People should make a stand for the things they love and want to see survive infinite generations.

In two years, there were 22 military coups d'etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d'etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path.

In recent years, research into the prevention and treatment of arthritis has led to measures that successfully reduce pain and improve the quality of life for millions.

Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

As long as one feels that he is the doer, he cannot escape from the wheel of births.

The negative side of football. The negative side of our society. People sometimes go to football and bring to it the negative aspects of our society.

Perhaps out inactivity is not so much waiting on God as it is an expression of the fear of man, the love of the praise of man, and disbelief in God's providence.

I think that everything in this life is a story you know; our own narrative, our own history, it's all a story.

You can't just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children