Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

I like to think that each book I start is a completely new departure But I’ve learned that whatever you do, readers will have no difficulty assimilating it into what you’ve done before.

I do have a very strong sense that most of the terrible things in life happen suddenly and unpredictably, and certainly can sweep you off in different directions, and that is always of interest to a novelist.

You can spin stories out of the ways people understand and misunderstand each other.

She bent her finger and then straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge. She brought her forefinger closer to her face and stared at it, urging it to move. It remained still because she was pretending... . And when she did crook it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of her mind.

It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.

I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair.