I prefer dead writers because you don't run into them at parties.
Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know.
The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.
I have been lucky with writers. None have been real trouble. Some I never met. Some I meet only after the book is finished, and some, the easiest to get along with, are the dead ones. Most become friends.
It is a mean thief or a successful author that plunders the dead.
I'm not a huge fan of prequels and sequels and the cynical rush to make money on the back of books by other writers who are now dead.
[On the writers she admires:] I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties.
I do tend to feel more connected to dead writers, perhaps because they have finished their work.
