A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life.

I like commas. I detest semi-colons — I don’t think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn’t need them, they were fly-specks on the page.

I worry about images. Images are what things mean.

Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

We make a mistake to condescend to the past as if it were preparatory to our own time.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.