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" Either you can do what others want, or you can do what you want to do. That's an easy call. "

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" My biggest pet peeve is when you go to a fine restaurant, and it's like a mausoleum inside. Good food should be joyful. There should be laughter and chatter, not people sitting there like they're in a funeral-parlor waiting room. "

" We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive. "

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

" I write novellas because I don't like loose sprawling prose. "

" I do mourn my characters. I wrote an essay once where I was sure that far back in a marsh there was a hummock - a little hill of hardwoods - and an old farm house, where all the heroines in my novels lived together with all my beloved dead dogs. I've discussed this with my therapist, naturally. He says it's okay in fair amounts. "

" I rarely read or buy a book because of a review. "

" You can't be unhappy in the middle of a big, beautiful river. "

" Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy... or they become legend. "

" Your subconscious mind is trying to help you all the time. That's why I keep a journal - not for chatter but for mostly the images that flow into the mind or little ideas. I keep a running journal, and I have all of my life, so it's like your gold mine when you start writing. "

" As a child, I was an obsessive reader, as was everybody in my family all winter long with my father. I think I was only 8 when I read Edward Gibbon's 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' "

" We pretend that the brain is binary, like a computer. But it's not. It's completely holographic. "

" I wrote 'Legends of the Fall' in nine days, but I had been thinking about it for a few years. "

" My favorite thing is just walking in the woods. I can do it for days on end without tiring of it. "

" There's something frightening about finding a woman who would take your heart. "

" We are delightfully trapped by our memories. I can't drink a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vieux Telegraphe without revisiting a hotel bistro in Luzerne, Switzerland, where I ate a large bowl of a peppery Basque baby goat stew. A sip and a bite. A bite and sip. Goose bumps come with the divine conjunction of food and wine. "

" The big curse of America, to me, is skinless, boneless chicken breasts. They're banal and relatively flavorless. The rest of the world's trying to get some fat to eat, and we're trying to ban it from our diet. "

" 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. "

" You can be in terrible shape, and if you take a three-hour walk through the forest and along the river, you're simply not the same as when you started out. "

" I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence. "

" Sometimes, I tell my wife I have to take a car trip and collect new memories - I like to drive around at absolute random for weeks on end through the United States and parts of Canada. Or else I feel trapped, like you feel when your life is completely planned for months in advance, and you think you're not getting enough oxygen. "

" I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that. "

" Writing as a woman presents enormous problems but I have attempted it several times and haven't had many complaints. "

" Given free rein, our imagination can get infinite. "

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