I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.

I saw that my best work was my most personal work, which is odd, because my fiction is very far afield and has nothing to do with my life.

Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame

But we cannot unbraid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do.

Do you want to do this thing? Sit down and do it. Are you not writing? Keep sitting there. Does it not feel right? Keep sitting there. Think of yourself as a monk walking the path to enlightenment. Think of yourself as a high school senior wanting to be a neurosurgeon. Is it possible? Yes. Is there some shortcut? Not one I've found. Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

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

No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do