We're always inventing, even if we're making someone who's fairly close to ourselves.

I don't have the courage not to write all the time.

I just like doing it, I like writing.

You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.

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

I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.

Even murderers, I suppose, experience the loss of car keys the way the rest of us do. I mean, how can they not? Once you make this person scramble around the house looking for her car keys and finally find them, get in the car, and run into traffic, we can identify with her enough that when she stops the car and pulls the gun out of her purse and heads in to kill somebody, we'll be with her as much as is possible.