Notable Quote
December 2, 2007
- What is best to remember when seeking to create welcoming and memorable occasions?
“I always start with a glass of Champagne. It makes things festive; it behaves almost like a magic potent. That said, entertaining is about giving to people and sharing with them. Conversation makes entertaining memorable. So, work at stimulating conversation through questions or good pairings of guests. For ...
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December 2, 2007
- When I write a novel, I don’t necessarily plan it out, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But as I go, things occur to me and I note them down, on another piece of paper or in the margins, so that I’m going to get to that part. And that’s as much as I’m willing to do. I’ve never made an outline in my life.
I’ll say this much. I write in longhand. Then I reread it. As I reread ...
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December 2, 2007
- “We see them at the bar,” Black says in his lyrical Scottish burr. “You see people scribbling on napkins, you know, their sad and miserable stories. They’ll be in the corner with their candles, scribbling away. And you wonder, what are they scribbling?”
“What they’re scribbling might resemble what one finds in Public House...”
–Me, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle on ...
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December 2, 2007
- What happens in Latin America affects us, and what happens in the rest of the world affects us.
–Me, quoted in the San Francisco Reader, interviewed by Jeff Troiano
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December 2, 2007
- I think a lot in terms of what I am missing in books that I want. And I am missing a story of redemption that I find believable. Lyrical, but believable.
–Me, quoted on Salon.com, March 31st, 1998
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December 1, 2007
- It's like spelunking, with a light on your hat. … You’re descending into dark and unknown territory and you can never see very far ahead.
–Me, quoted on Salon.com, December 16th, 1996
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December 1, 2007
- What a marvel regional speech is, for those who can get into it. People in Greeneville assured me that there are still plenty of folks farther up in the hills, and even there in town, who speak Smoky English. But Southern talk doesn’t have to be as rich as all that to be interesting. In the Sav-a-Lot supermarket one afternoon, I was involved in a four-part conversation, of maybe three ...
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November 30, 2007
- As a society, “we don’t like to look at the dark side of our own religious tradition.”
–Me, in a Red Room interview, October 19th, 2007
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November 30, 2007
- Women are defensive about their choices and that's totally understandable. In a time of cultural flux, someone else's decisions and accommodations can feel like a reproach. One of my favorite scenes in the book is between two sisters who have very different lives, and as they're talking while doing the dishes, they realize that if they weren't sisters they'd be incredibly judgmental about one ...
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November 30, 2007
