Since I cant write the greatest American novel, Im going to write the longest American novel.

The biggest impact my father had on my life was teaching the importance of literacy.

For someone who loves literature, and all books on principle, being asked to name three titles over a half century of serious reading is akin to asking one to recall their three favorite sunsets.

My father thought of himself as a tradesman. A craftsman.

My father valued patriotism above all other social obligations, but he had his own particular interpretation of just how true patriotism was meant to function.

You didnt grow up in the shadow of John Steinbeck. He put you on his shoulders and gave you all the light you wanted.

I like writing, but I write for self-improvement more than I do for money.

My father believed, like Pericles, that a mans genius could be easily judged by the number of unenlightened fools set in phalanx against his ideas.

Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.

I started writing serious books so late because I knew Id be accused of riding on my fathers coattails.

If I knew how a lot of my relationships would have turned out, I never would have gotten involved in them... And I would have missed out on some of the best times in my life.

Remove yourself, sir!

I invented magic stuff; it came very easily. Now, I sucked at everything else, but I was good at magic as a kid.

Can the "word" be pinned down to either one period or one church? All churches are, of course, only more or less unsuccessful attempts to represent the unseen to the mind.

If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.

I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly.

It's not a holiday until you overdo it!

I was speechless. Rare for me, but if anyone was capable of shocking me to silence, it was my mother.

When a person reports a feeling, it's a comment on our relationship.

Thou art a Castilian King urinal!