We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.

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

When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.

I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need to jump over.

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

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

I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.