English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.

I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.

I was never specifically associated with a part, I didn't have tons of money, I wasn't conventionally tall or handsome, so you know the things that were available to me were hard work and perseverance.

The public, the whites - not just in Oklahoma, but across the United States - were transfixed by the Osage wealth which belied images of Native Americans that could be traced back to the first brutal contact with whites.

My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.