A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.

At a certain point, you must be able to slip loose. At a certain point, you found that you had been set free. You could be anyone, he thought. You could be anyone.

It is not like a premonition of death. It is as if she died a long time ago, and she just now remembered it.

Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them even if I want to.

I feel like I go back and forth between being fairly fatalistic and really more hopeful about the possibilities of things changing. And will see how that goes in this election cycle. That will probably strongly affect how fatalistic I am.

I'd read an enormous amount but had spent so much time in my own head that I didn't have extensive social skills. Suddenly I was in this world where I was surrounded by these incredibly polished and wealthy kids who had gone to prep schools, and I felt daunted by them. I don't think people were aware of how full of anxiety I was... For a long time I felt like I was living in a place where I shouldn't have been.

I was worried that, as a college teacher, if I wrote too much about intergenerational sex my students would be creeped out.