You are always someones favorite unfolding story

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 was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.

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

[I remember going] to a hotel gym at six o'clock in the morning, and the television was on, and it's some drama in which two men have clearly kidnapped a woman. They're interrogating her, and they put a plastic bag over her head. They're suffocating her, and I'm thinking, It's six o'clock in the morning! Why does anybody need to see this? How can I find the off switch?

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend. You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer. You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person. You are the same person in every aspect of your life, and you have to be a responsible person in every aspect of your life.

We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three people.