I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.

Words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

We never believe we're beautiful, no matter how many times we hear it. We never believe it until someone says it in the right way.

You can assume that if a writer's work has survived for centuries, there are reasons why this is so, explanations that have nothing to do with a conspiracy of academics plotting to resuscitate a zombie army of dead white males.

You aim for what you want and if you don't get it, you don't get it, but if you don't aim, you don't get anything.

Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.

Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our interest has everything to do with those choices.