Before that I was a scientist. I did research in population biology. And that's what I always go back to, it helps me to remember that people are not the end of the world, although we may be when it comes to it. We're just one species among millions in this world.

Anybody can get worked up, if they have the intention. It's peacefulness that is hard to come by on purpose.

You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.

A person could spend most of a lifetime in retrospective terror, thinking of all the things one nearly didn't do.

In fact, one of the things that I really love about literary fiction is that it's one of the few kinds of writing that doesn't tell us what to think or what to buy or what to wear. We're surrounded by advertising.

Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

Do you think its possible to live without wanting to put your name on your paintings? To belong to a group so securely you don't need to rise above it?