Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.

A writer's occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.

the novel is inherently a political instrument, regardless of its subject. It invites you - more than invites you, induces you - to live inside another person's skin. It creates empathy. And that's the antidote to bigotry. The novel doesn't just tell you about another life, which is what a newspaper would do. It makes you live another life, inhabit another perspective. And that's very important.

No matter what kind of night you're having, morning always wins.

To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another that is surely the basic instinct - crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is!

Sleeping alone seemed unnatural to me, and pitiful, something done in hospitals or when you're contagious.