To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.

Anyone who's really interested in anything spends time alone.

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.

My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.

There are people we treat wrong and later, we're prepared to treat other people right.

I feel like a lot of life is distasteful and embarrassing. And you just push through it. You fix what you can, and you let time pass.

I just like to inhabit a character really deeply.