“The places of quiet are going away, the churches, the woods, the libraries. And it is only in silence we can hear the voice inside of us which gives us true peace.”

“There is no greater thing than to be oneself, and it is never too late to do so.”

“We have created a world we dont like, dont understand and dont trust, and we are too frightened to try to change it.”

“Forget scientists. The next space launch we should send up painters, poets and musicians. Id be more interested in what they discover than anything that takes place in a test tube.”

“Where there is hope there is life.”

“My problem as a writer is thatwhenever I meet someone for the first timeI immediately invent for them a personality and background that are invariably more interesting than the ones they possess. A...”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are ...”

“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.”

“A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.”

“Perhaps this is what Henry James meant when he talked about the irresponsibility of characters. Characters are irresponsible, art is irresponsible when compared to life, because it is first and for...”

“She had a way about her that spoke of homemade bread, and caring for people, and the kind of patience that women have when they help a ewe birth a lamb, or stay up in the night with a baby calf baw...”

“The reality I submerse myself in when writing, is far greater than the physical reality surrounding me at work!”

“As you write your novel, you gradually start thinking like some of your characters in it. And at times the writer may lose himself completely in some character.”

“(Every great character, Iz, be it on page or screen, is multidimensional. The good guys aren't all good, and the bad guys aren't all bad, and any character wholly one or the other shouldn't exist a...”

“When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending---I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters.”