Fiction is too complicated and too elusive to break down into a set of tricks.

A self needed to spill out sometimes, a body should show evidence of what the hell went on inside it.

Sorry, I said to myself, wondering how many times in my marriage I'd said that, how many times I'd meant it, how many times Claire had actually believed it, and, most important, how many times the utterance had any impact whatsoever on our dispute. What a lovely chart one could draw of this word Sorry.

My goal, with whatever I'm working on, is to lose track of time.

Fiction is too complicated and too elusive to break down into a set of tricks.

Fiction becomes a place where I face certain fears such as losing language or losing my children.

In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out and it's vivid, I find that I care about it, and it's part of me.