But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.

Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.

I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, "I need a little more psychological realism."

She nodded, jotting something in her notebook. You’re writing that down? Has the interview started?” Lee, whenever you’re talking to a reporter, you’re being interviewed.

It's never that hard for me to imagine what it must feel like to be someone else, whether it's an American teenage girl or a Japanese octogenarian man

She has always been a bystander in family destruction, never realizing she herself possessed the capacity to inflict it.

If you knew where your happiness came from, it gave you patience. You realized that a lot of the time, you were just waiting out a situation, and that took the pressure off; you no longer looked to every interaction to actually do something for you.