I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

There are some people who have the quality of richness and joy in them and they communicate it to everything they touch. It is first of all a physical quality; then it is a quality of the spirit.

In the 1930s, all the novelists had seemed to be people who came blazing up into stardom from out of total obscurity. That seemed to be the nature of the beast. The biographical notes on the dustjackets of the novels were terrific.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.

I never forget. I never forgive. I can wait. I find it very easy to harbor a grudge. I have scores to settle.