Don't write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.

You can tell within a sentence if something is fiction or non-fiction. You can tell in the artifice of the language or the care of the construction the difference between art and life.

I think fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition.

There are writers who draw immediate attention to the fact that it's fiction. And I like some of that, but it doesn't really have the power.

You're never so alive as after you thought you were going to die.

Don't write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.

I think talent has a huge amount to do with concentration, concentration rather than the athletic ability of your neurons. If you can concentrate on an esoteric piece of math, how can you think about the rest of your life? That's why people can leave their car keys in the gutter; they're in the midst of obsession and concentration.