Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

Fiction structures an experience for the reader to live through. ... That is why people read: to have experiences.

To gain the book, one must give up all hope for the book. It is the only way the book can get written.

Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing.

Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

We are constantly telling ourselves what we most want to know, and at the same time are deaf to it. Why does envy have such a fierce bite? Why do we fall silent or get worried just as our story is about to spring out of our control and into its own life? Whose shadow falls across the page?

Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties.