The novel tradition is the closest thing I have to a religion, and being a part of that tradition means a lot to me. I don't really see - I never have seen - why I should have to forfeit that feeling, or hope, of belonging, just because the stories I want to tell are close to my own experience.

I think humor is a really important way of creating solidarity - like, through humor you can make people realize that certain situations, where they thought they were alone, are actually shared by everyone.

In a lot of ways, being a writer is a lousy job - grueling, emotionally taxing, terrible hours, no health care - so if it wasn't about love, what would be the point?

People are shaped by friendship as much as by romance.

I think it's true that, as is often observed, the writer is always an outsider. A writer is someone who is telling stories about what's going on, which is something you can't do if you're totally caught up in the moment.

I try really hard to cultivate the pure love of reading, to make time for it, because it would be really sad to still be a writer without remembering why, on some visceral, emotional level.

I've gotten a lot of comfort from the philosophy of the Roman Stoics. For me, one of the most powerful ideas of Stoicism is that you can't pick or choose in the world what you want to happen and what you don't want to happen, and that actually if you did get to choose, the version you would come up with would be unsociable, lame, and basically less beautiful than the truth.