Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

I'd been assured, at age 21 or so, by a well-known editor who saw the first part of The Secret History in what was basically its final form, that it would never be published because "no woman has ever written a successful novel from a male point of view."

You are - all your experience just kind of accumulates, and the novel takes a richness of its own simply because it has the weight of all those years that one's put into it.

The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.

Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand.

Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.

If I'm not working, I'm not happy. That's it. That's the prerequisite for me for happiness.