The most difficult problems are naturally not involved in the search for forms for contemporary life. It is a question of working our way to forms behind which real human values lie.
The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.
It's one of the great tragedies of our contemporary life in America, that families fall apart. Almost everybody has that in common.
I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science.
I write about the trials and triumphs of contemporary life - and often the readers see themselves between the lines of the story.
Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life.
We need it to capture the energy of contemporary life.
I think it has other roots, has to do, in part, with a general anxiety in contemporary life... nuclear bombs, inequality of possibility and chance, inequality of goods allotted to us, a kind of general racist, unjust attitude that is pervasive.
Our contemporary society is experimenting with the diminishment of caregivers for children. Some children are raised through crucial stages of life by only one person. This one person, who strives to give the best, may be overwhelmed, busy, trying to raise many children. And even in homes with two parents, many children are essentially alone.
The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.
I think a playful critique is good for all of us, and that's basically how I see satire functioning. But I'm not interested in a kind of contemptuous satirical vision; I try always, even when I'm knowingly being satirical, to also be humane, but I mean, let's face it: there's plenty in American life to make fun of, and we all participate in it.
I've had a contemptuous relationship with authority throughout my life. I found myself at odds with authority, and I'm disdainful of blind authority.
I contend the state ought to do its thing and provide legal rights for all couples who want to be joined together for life. The church should bless unions that it sees fit to bless, and they should be called marriages.
All my life, Americans have been accustomed to thinking of theirs as 'the richest, freest' country in the world. By most measurements, it was long a contender for that honor, and - among the larger countries, if equal weight were given to wealth and indices of freedom - probably did deserve to be so described.
I have been contending all my life, and always with God.
To the extent that I come from a deeply religious tradition and have been contending with those beginnings all of my life - that constitutes the subject of much of my early fiction.
I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.
People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
Anyone's life truly lived consists of work, sunshine, exercise, soap, plenty of fresh air, and a happy contented spirit.
The necessary thing for anyone to be happy and contented as long as he lives is working for the ones who will come after him rather than working for himself... One can reach the true delight and happiness in the life only by working for the existence, honor, and happiness of the future generations.
