You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person.

The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.

Maybe the private life wasn't forever. Maybe everyone got it for a little while and then spent the rest of their lives remembering.

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?

Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.

I don't believe in fate, as in, which I - as a Catholic, I think, sort of predestination. But I certainly believe in chance.