Thomas Mallon

“he’d spent his whole life trying to make God love him—and that this didn’t matter in the slightest. All that mattered was…

— Thomas Mallon

Cell phones, alas, have pretty much ruined train travel, which I used to love. I could read or even sketch notes for…

— Thomas Mallon

My prescription for writer's block is to face the fact that there is no such thing.... Writing well is difficult, but one…

— Thomas Mallon

My house in Connecticut is very quiet, and when I'm trying to concentrate, I don't even allow the cat inside my second-floor…

— Thomas Mallon

I actually think that 'Bandbox,' by far the silliest of my books, is the best constructed of them.

— Thomas Mallon

Bobby Kennedy's conduct toward Lyndon Johnson was childish and despicable. As the years went on, he displayed nasty, self-pitying, and messianic qualities…

— Thomas Mallon

The Czech Republic, severed from its old Slovak half, sits in apparent landlocked contentment, inside the European Union but outside the troubled…

— Thomas Mallon

One decision I made in writing 'Henry and Clara' was that I would keep Lincoln's appearances and any dialogue by him to…

— Thomas Mallon

American secretaries of state have typically been more buttoned up than bon vivant, but John Quincy Adams's diplomatic successes - bigger than…

— Thomas Mallon

I was raised - and still consider myself to be - Catholic, though I'm non-practicing and haven't fulfilled my Easter duty since…

— Thomas Mallon

I think that the worst form of naivete can be extreme cynicism. If you think that nobody comes to Washington to do…

— Thomas Mallon

I remember from my academic days, there were people who could never begin writing because they hadn't read every single thing on…

— Thomas Mallon

“[Voltaire] was generally unbedeviled by any foolish consistency.”

— Thomas Mallon

“Daisy loved all parades, especially this one, whose crush of observers, prone to impulsive kisses, made it one more piece of the…

— Thomas Mallon

Ive always got a novel under way, but if I try to work on it every day, exclusively, I falter. So I…

— Thomas Mallon

John Quincy Adams ranks with Jimmy Carter on the roster of ex-presidential redemption. Instead of completing a biography of his father, he…

— Thomas Mallon

I've long been interested in the role of 'minor characters' in major events. This has been the focus of a lot of…

— Thomas Mallon

I like writing dialog but don't think I'd be much good at a screenplay. I once had to write a treatment for…

— Thomas Mallon

One's politics are part of one even when one is writing. But if I want to say anything about the state of…

— Thomas Mallon

I'd have to say that Nixon feels like the public figure who most dominated my life - from the time I went…

— Thomas Mallon

The romantic appeal of solar sailing has ensured that its advocates consistently come from the worlds of both science fiction and science…

— Thomas Mallon

Of all Americans who have appeared on the nation's postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that…

— Thomas Mallon

The cosmic game changed forever in 1992. Before then, logic told us that there had to be other planets besides the nine…

— Thomas Mallon

The green appeal of solar sailing - traveling by light, once chemical propellants have done their dirty job of orbital insertion -…

— Thomas Mallon

Stars, of course, are too hot to support life, so wherever life might exist in the universe, it has to be on…

— Thomas Mallon