I am the person who is appropriating stories that are not mine and turning them into a book.

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

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

I am not mature enough as a reader to enjoy a book in which I hate all the people.

I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.

I will write my way into another life.