“There are various virtues of what counts as a best explanation, and I imagine familiarity is one of them.”

“I must warn you that the books I like are not necessarily the ones I think are the best. I like them for various reasons not always easy to explain.”

“Place in writing often exists at that intersection between the reality of place and one's imagination about that place -- what one believes, hopes, or imagines about the various possibilities of oneself in that place.”

“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

“To write is to carve a new path through the terrain of the imagination, or to point out new features on a familiar route. To read is to travel through that terrain with the author as a guide-- a guide one might not always agree with or trust, but who can at least be counted on to take one somewhere.”

“People struggling with life in a fallen world often want explanations when what they really need is imagination.”