I had never written about what it's like to live the life of a writer, and I had never read a book that combined talking about the life of writing and how you can do it, how you can stand it, how you can emotionally manage it, with the choices that we all make on the page.

I had never written about what it's like to live the life of a writer, and I had never read a book that combined talking about the life of writing and how you can do it, how you can stand it, how you can emotionally manage it, with the choices that we all make on the page.

Sometimes people want to know how to write a story from the point of view of a murderer and make her sympathetic. I think the answer is that you start by having her look for her car keys, because everybody knows what it's like.

I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.

Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.

It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who is different.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.