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I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

With great writing, there is great clarity.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

Prose is something that is persistent in staying in one place long enough to not only zero in on the dramatic effect of something that might have happened, or something that might have been seen, but also in watching how it played out and thinking about the cause and the effect.

I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.

The older I get, the more I seek to use a plain prose style, concentrating more on story.

When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way out is through the sentences.