Your kids inevitably want to move where they had their vacations when they were younger.

I see more genuine sociability between the races in Mississippi than I see in Michigan. No question.

I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.

Yeah, but now suddenly - you know, universities are notoriously market oriented, too.

Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.

The old fun thing is when somebody typed up the first chapter of War and Peace. And then made a precis of the rest of it and sent it out and only one publisher recognized it.

I don't know what psychotherapy does. I have been seeing the same person for 26 years now.

I can't stand the short story form, which, after all, is a magazine form.

I'm afraid that eating in restaurants reflects one's experiences with movies, art galleries, novels, music - that is, characterized by mild amusement but with an overall feeling of stupidity and shame. Better to cook for yourself.

Nothing in the world causes more problems than concepts of ethnic virtue. It's irrelevant.

How is it macho that I like to hunt and fish? I've been doing it since I was four.

I've never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there.

Fiction writers tend to err either making people more than they are or less than they are. I'd rather err on the side of the former.

I'm outdoors a lot, so I get dark. Guess who gets stopped? I've been pulled over, and they ask, 'Where are you from?' I say, 'Montana.' They say, 'Are you sure? And I say, 'I'm reasonably sure I'm from Montana, but you know, this is a dream life.' You start on this shtick with them and it's fun.

We are all naturally xenophobic.

You have to temporarily be the character in order to understand him. It's sort of what they used to call 'shape-shifting.'

Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.

I wasn't taking myself seriously as a novelist, and then it became my day job.

What moves me most is style: the quality of the writing rather than the story being told.

The idea is to eat well and not die from it - for the simple reason that that would be the end of your eating.

I don't feel tentative when I start to write. I've usually thought about a novel or novella for several years and created a lot of juice and density and energy by that time so by the time I get ready to go, I just let 'er fling, you know.

New Yorkers are mostly interested in New York - in case you haven't noticed.

The only durable sense of success is if you've followed your calling.

The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.