I concentrate on character, theme, language, structure, voice. It actually surprises me that no matter what I write, people declare it "intently political." I'm just writing about the world I know, as it is. Wounds and griefs included.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission?

The gods you do not pay are the ones that can curse you best.

My way of finding a place in this world is to write one.

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers.

I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.