my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.

And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.

I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible.

I do not write about nice people. I am not nice people.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.

I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.