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

To have too much time is not good, you have to force yourself. And human beings aren't meant for true freedom. I've learned that, having had it.

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

You have to be smart enough to see the world for yourself and honest. The whole book-publicity thing is not really honest, at base.

Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.

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

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.