Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you've bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch 'em carry it off, and you don't care. That's more like how it was.

Is human nature basically good or evil? No economist can embark upon his profession without considering this question, and yet they all seem to. And they all seem to think human nature is basically good, or they wouldn't be surprised by the effects of deregulation.

A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.

Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.

The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.