Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

From Graham Greene, I learnt how to be an accessible writer who grapples with our doubts as sentient individuals.

I've been known to write on the Underground in London and on the subway in New York. I have two or three cafes in Paris that I go into. I find a corner with a little shade, and I can work.

Tragedy is one of the larger prices we pay for being alive. No one ever sidesteps tragedy. It is always there, shadowing us.

We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.

All our stories are simultaneously unique and desperately similar, aren't they?

With a novel, no matter where I am in it, I'm fretting about it. Every time I write a book, it starts with great forward momentum. Then there seems to be a period where it slows down a bit, and other things intervene. Then I gain momentum.