I'm a really a fanatical reviser, and there comes a point where I have to declare a truce with the text, or I'll keep fooling with it forever.

I had a passionate zest for Key West life in all of its little details. I'm not sure why or where that came from, but I was so excited to be there.

There's a view of Montana writing that seems stage-managed by the Chamber of Commerce - it's all about writers like A. B. Guthrie and Ivan Doig. It used to bother me that nobody had a scene where somebody was delivering a pizza.

If I get too old to write, or short-term memory loss - that was the one Philip Roth was worried about - if I got to that point, that would be terrible, because everything about my life has been streaming toward writing and having something to say. That would make me feel as though I were in an iron maiden of some kind.

I say enough to the truce.

Anglers who see fish exceptionally well can fish successfully in less productive water than anglers who don't. Fishermen love equipment and are always looking for mechanical advantages, but there is nothing to compare with learning to see well; if you see well enough, you can walk out in the mud with no boat and catch fish.