There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony.

There were moments when I felt seriously unhinged; when I was convinced that I would never, ever recover from what had happened, when it was absolutely clear to me that life from this point on would be constant agony.

I want to be a popular novelist who's also serious, or a serious novelist who's also very accessible.

We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.

Success is a very fragile veneer. I get wary of people who embrace celebrity. It ruins people.

But what we can never do is change the story that has made us what we are. It's a story completely dictated by the accumulation of life's manifold complexities—its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what has happened to us.

Words matter, words have import.