You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.

I feel like people who criticize authors for being self-promotional fail to recognize that a lot of times their ability to continue writing hinges on sales and recognition. Some of it is for fun, some of it is for ego, but a lot of it is just writers trying to ensure longevity to their career.

What greater happiness is there than the privilege of being bored together?

I think I write what's interesting to me, and so if I'm reading I like to have a very thorough idea of a character in a book that's by someone else.

... it struck me as so hard to believe I was really getting what I wanted; it was always easier to feel the lack of something than the thing itself.

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

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.