I'm not so sure that I can teach people how to, you know, write dialogue or create plot or anything like that. But if I can get them and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you can do this, and if I see that fire in their eyes, that's when I think I know a writer.

One look at each other and it was immediately understood that they both needed a clean slate,,, The obliteration of memory.

The point of flight. To get rid of oneself. That was reason enough to fly.

The contemporary American novelist benefits in a way from being ignored. It makes you angrier and makes you want to go into all of those places where you shouldnt.

Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years

We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what really was, what it meant.

I'm a complete and utter fiction. Then again, we all are.