Wanting to know absolutely what a story is about, and to be able to say it in a few sentences, is dangerous: it can lead us to wanting to possess a story as we possess a cup... A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth.

What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

Romance dies hard, because its very nature is to want to live.

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment.