I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.

That the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.

Cities produce in me melancholy or a tension I don't need.

You should learn to say nothing that will cause you regret. You should not say what is not in your heart - or what is only in your heart for a moment. But you know this - silence is better.

There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.

To persevere is always a reflection of the state of one's inner life, one's philosophy and one's perspective