“When Edna O'Brien's first novel, 'The Country Girls,' was published in...” — Alan Cheuse Quote

“When Edna O'Brien's first novel, 'The Country Girls,' was published in 1960, her family and neighbors in the small Irish village where she was born tossed copies into a bonfire expressly set for that horrifying purpose.”

“Sad to think that we won't have any new stories from John Updike, one of the last century's masters. But so many here in the two volumes of his collected stories, 186 by my count, stories to read, reread, savor over the course of a cold season. Updike's genius in the short form spills out of these many, many pages.”

“I know how to make a little bonfire, fight off some coyotes, or whatever we got to do.”

“The same way that I know that I'll never do a movie as good or as celebrated as 'Forrest Gump,' I know that I'll never do a movie as bad as 'Bonfire of the Vanities.'”

“I don't read a ton of fiction, but Tom Wolfe's death got me to pick up 'The Bonfire of the Vanities.' I'm a slow reader, but wow - I ended up devouring it in about six days. I'm fascinated with that period, the '80s, when the country was turning around but it seemed like New York and other cities were just hopelessly lost.”