I Don't Think I'm Morbid By Nature.

'we Were The Mulvaneys' Is Perhaps The Novel Closest To My Heart. I Think Of It As A Valentine To A Passing Way Of American Life, And To My Own Particular Child - And Girlhood In Upstate New York. Everyone In The Novel Is Enormously Close To Me, Including Marianne's Cat, Muffin, Who Was In Fact My Own Cat.

To Be True To Life, A Novel Must Have An Ending That Is Inevitable Given The Specific Personalities Of The Characters Involved. The Novelist Must Not Impose An Ending Upon Them.

I Work Very Slowly. It's Like Building A Ladder, Where You're Building Your Own Ladder Rung By Rung, And You're Climbing The Ladder. It's Not The Best Way To Build A Ladder, But I Don't Know Any Other Way.

We Are Stimulated To Emotional Response, Not By Works That Confirm Our Sense Of The World, But By Works That Challenge It.

Art Is A Means Of Memorialization Of The Past, A Record Of A Rapidly Vanishing World; A Means Of Exorcising, At Least Temporarily, The Ravages Of Homesickness. To Speak Of 'what Is Past, Or Passing Or To Come'-in The Most Meticulous Language Thereby To Assure Its Permanence; To Honor Those We've Loved And Learned From And Must Outlive.