Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy

I think it's especially important for an editor to say what he's enjoying. For a novelist to be told, midstream, what he's doing right can actually influence the unwritten parts of a novel in a positive way - praise helps a writer know what's good about what he's written, what's interesting and exciting, and what to work for in writing the conclusion.

After all, the appeal to stop being yourself, even for a little while, is very great