You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend. You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer. You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person. You are the same person in every aspect of your life, and you have to be a responsible person in every aspect of your life.

I should figure out why I'm so much more interested in doing something that I think is really hard. But, somehow, the thing that is hard for me feels more noble.

The light was cut to lace by the trees that had grown so thick with leaves in the last few months.

This is my job, my livelihood: the health and the well-being of the publishing industry. We're all responsible for this.

There are, of course, people who didn't create the trouble they're in, but lots of them do.

It's always better to have too much to read than not enough.

I love a large cast of characters. That's the way life is: it's flooded with people and we keep them all straight.