Writing is the only art form where a good number of the artists make a slice of their living criticizing one another in print, in public.

Literature simply becomes richer after you've been fired, rejected, stranded, or had to change a few midnight diapers.

Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape -- I didn't read to learn, I was reading to read.

I write for the same reason I read: because it's all there is for me.

Harold Bloom weeps for me.

Blood may be thicker than water, but family has them both beat.

Sometimes you'll remove the log from your own eyes and to your amazement

It seemed the heavens themselves conspired to cover up our crime.

They say that golf isn't a contact sport. Not the way that we play it

I could have easily been too afraid to say 'yes' to Chicago, because it requires so much I haven't done before. If I am a flop at singing and dancing, maybe my love for it will carry me through.

At the time of the Revolution, dogs howled day and night all over Russia.

Age is not enviable in America. It's not applauded all that strongly. You have to take it all with a grain of salt.

I ran across a rattlesnake once in New Mexico, you know what I did with it, chopped its head off and we ate it.

I think fame is harder when people have something to hide, but I'm very comfortable, and have nothing to hide.

My books definitely are ambassadors, as you called them. They express what the vision is, what the purpose is.