If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.

The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.

I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.

It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.

Absent parents aren't abusive per se. They're neglectful. They love in a very imperfect way. There are parents like that, and they do love their daughters and sons, but they're not parents in the way that we might think of it.

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.