A woman raised her hand and said that her minister had told the congregation that they should never read novels with omniscient narrators, because the writer was trying to imitate God. Really? I said....
Zen- Dojo Tozan was not in Sarnen or Thu but somewhere between the two, not in a village but in the tall grass and blue flowers.
Your mom doesn't know about the movie, does she? My mom doesn't know about the book, he said, It turns out a novel isn't the worst place to hide things.
You have to remember that they could go at any time, and if a man’s smart he never forgets that.
You don't find strangers declaring themselves to you awkward?' But then she wouldn't, would she? People must fall in love with her hourly. She must keep a staff of translators to interpret the proposa...
You could see just a trace of the daughter there, the way she held her shoulders back, the length of her neck. It was a crime what time did to women.
Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing. The secret is finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your...
Without worry to protect me, every thought that came into my mind received real attention.
With Tennessee there to visit, Regina Cleri had been bearable to him, and without her he felt like what he was: a useless old man who had been shelved away to die.
When you think of love you think as an American. You must think like a Russian. It is a more expansive view.''Americans havea bad habbit of thinking like Americans,' Roxane said kindly.
When did the mammals get confusing? Who can’t look at a baby and a puppy and see the differences? You can’t leave babies at home alone with a chew toy when you go to the movies. Babies will not shimmy...
When I hear Roxane sing I am still able to think well of the world, Gen said. This is a world in which she can still sing that music with so much compassion. That's proof of something, isn't it?
What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is o...
What is it you said to me just now? There was a time? Maybe there was a time. To tell you the truth I can’t remember. From where I sit I would tell you that having a child is akin to plotting your own...
What do the only children do?
What I like about the job of being a novelist, and at the same time what I find so exhausting about it, is that it’s the closest thing to being God you’re ever going to get. All of the decisions are y...
We are, on this earth, so incredibly small, in the history of time, in the crowd of the world, we are practically invisible, not even a dot, and yet we have each other to hold on to. When we do things...
We are, however, entirely responsible for procrastination, and in the best of all possible worlds, we should also be responsible for being honest with ourselves about what is really going on. I
We all have ideas, sometimes good ones, not to mention the gift of emotional turmoil that every childhood provides.
This was the pleasure of a long life: the way some things worked themselves out.