Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.

I know I have to write about the things that keep me awake at night.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

I never think that anything I'm writing is bluntly political in any way. I'm not going for commentary.

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

There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

Loose lips sink ships.