There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.

I want the younger writer to know that she or he is meaningful, that what they have to say is powerful in this world. But they can't come indoors, they can't close the curtains, they can't, like, lock themselves away from the world and say nothing.

Where happiness was not a possibility, the illusion of it was always more important.

With all respects to heaven, I like it here.

I’m not interested in blind optimism, but I’m very interested in optimism that is hard-won, that takes on darkness and then says, ‘This is not enough.’ But it takes time, more time than we can sometimes imagine, to get there. And sometimes we don’t.

Personally, I like the social novel. I like writing that gets in and under the hood and looks about - at what's going on. But I don't say to any writer that that's absolutely what they should do.

Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but sometimes it's never even there in the first place.