How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors..

In his 30 years of broadcasting and publishing fiction, Garrison Keillor has set the laugh bar pretty high..

I spent part of my college years in a Marxist commune. I was not a Marxist. I wasn't even pretending to be one. I was a Marxist-in-law..

If there's anything Trollope novels always take seriously, it is money - how it flows from one character to another, how it is managed, who has it, w….

Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do, to….

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions..

Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay….

My mom was paranoid about my safety..

One of the things that Ivar knew about Mrs. Walker was that she would only tell him what she knew if he asked the right question, so he spent a porti….

When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I told my mother that my best friend and I were driving to California. She laughed ou….

Novelists never have to footnote..

Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for..

Every novel deals with social problems. It can't help it because the protagonist must come in conflict with his group. So the author has to offer an ….

When people leave, they always seem to scoop themselves out of you..

Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds up. But there are oth….

People with good intentions never give up!.

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite pr….

The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories..

I was an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents..

Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom..

Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full ….