Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.

Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read.

Every now and then, you find a book that feels like it was keyed to your DNA.

I realized that my identity as a novelist was private. Only I knew how much of a novelist I was!

The ideal editor will hold you to the best of yourself in the piece.

The way some were entrapped into lives of prostitution, the way that something like marriage could rob them of their rights.

Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.