i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates.

Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven.

No specific technology. My guess is that it was the instinct always to go to maximum scale. Great Britain kept much more of a small shop mindset well into the twentieth century, for instance.

It's a fool's life, a rogue's life, and a good life if you keep laughing all the way to the grave.

I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.

Congress is back in season.

No one wants to see a tattoo on a stomach.

I've got wonderful people I get to work with, and I'm trying to focus on that, instead of worrying about, Aw, who doesn't want to work with me? You focus on the ones who do.

Sometimes I feel like the most liberal person among conservatives, and sometimes like the most conservative among liberals.

Find a way to delight in all students. Look for the best, expect the best, and find something in each child [you] can treasure.