"Among the worst things about growing old is the loss of those irreplaceable friends who added richness and depth to your life."
- Pat Conroy
"I envy the tireless intimacy of women’s friendship, its lastingness, and its unbendable strength."
"Few people understood the exceptional role the civil rights movement had on the white boys and girls of the South. Bill Clinton would never have become who he was without the shining example of Martin..."
"In matters of good-lookingness, we writers are the ugliest of the bunch, and normally our appearance is akin to that of someone investigating a crime scene; though the women in American writing keep p..."
"The reading of great books has been a life-altering activity to me and, for better or worse, brought me singing and language-obsessed to that country where I make my living. Except for teaching, I’ve ..."
"I don’t know when reading books became the most essential thing about me, but it happened over the years and I found myself the most willing servant of what I considered a rich habit."
"Moonrise is a fabulous novel and my damn wife wrote it and that’s me up there near Highlands shouting it out to the hills."
"It eases my soul that I share a house with [Cassandra King] a novelist of such rare and distinctive gifts."
"My father managed to change his entire life after I wrote a novel about his brutal regime as a family man. It took resoluteness and courage for my father to change, and I need to acknowledge that."
"It’s the great surprise of my life that I ended up loving [my father] so much."