I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

Our house is like an empty cigarette packet, lying around reminding you what's not in it.

Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them.

Perhaps growing up meant we put our knives away and feigned ignorance of the damage.

The most important part of a story is the piece of it you don't know.

A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.

A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.