Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.

As a fiction writer, that's been a preoccupation of mine: Can you really just close the door and leave the past back there behind you, or is the door going to blow open at some point?

Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

Our minds simply don't function in some sort of narrative chronology. I think that one of the great gifts of writing fiction is being able to think about that.

I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people interrupt themselves in the middle of some story they're telling me to say, "You know you can't write about this."

The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it.