Writing seems to be the only profession people imagine you can do by thinking about doing it.

We are writers. We danced with words, as children, in what became familiar patterns. The words became our friends and our companions, and without even saying it aloud, a thought danced with them: I can do this. This is who I am.

It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.

Jane Austen may not be the best writer, but she certainly writes about the best people. And by that I mean people just like me.

I'm boggled by the idea of being an only child. I know nothing at all (I'm happy to say) about having had a cold and withholding mother, about being divorced. The more I've been writing novels, each novel I've written has become successively less grounded in anything approaching autobiography.

The misdeeds of ordinary men can be buried with them, and their lives described in half-truths that are really half-lies. But not a public man. Particularly not this one.

what we call things matters. ... The words we use, and how we perceive those words, reflect how we value, or devalue, people, places, and things.