Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings.

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

If I had problems, I kept them to myself. I didn't make a scene.

My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.

The timing of the electrical failure seemed dramatic and perfectly correct, as if the lights had said, "You have no need for sight. Listen.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.

I really do think that our subconscious gets corrupted with fear, and fear is how news media - all media - makes us [watch] long enough to get to the Tide commercial. That's all it's about. Generating fear so that we can buy the proper laundry detergent.