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

I think the difference between writing as someone and writing for them is that when you write for someone, you take on a kind of political burden or message, which I don't think we have the right to do.

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

Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.

We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.

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.

I just like doing it, I like writing.