I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward.

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.

I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own.

...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.