Truly things are better in general now, in America, than in the past.

I began to see, again and again, stories that were first confusing and second where the emotional impact was muted because the big scene came before the explanation of what was going on. There was a reverse chronological order as well as a concealment of what exactly was going on. I think often that comes out of the fear of being boring, and sometimes I think it's just an attempt to seem clever.

There seems to be a tremendous desire among many people now to know authors and how they work, to know what's autobiographical and what isn't.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.