Time has a funny way of collapsing when you go back to a place you once loved. You find yourself thinking, I was kissed in that building, I climbed up that tree.

Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it's really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on.

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.

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

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

Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.

Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame