I wish my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.

What can I say about life? Do I praise it for letting you live, or damn it for allowing the rest?

No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.

Wasn't that the way it always was? You didn't know, you couldn't tell, you just let it happen... Perhaps they didn't know themselves. Sometimes the line was very fine.

I usually start with something that has some energy, like a compressed character or a situation that's wound up like a spring. Then all I have to do is let it go, let its energy carry the story. And that may not turn out to be the beginning of the book.

Inside every human being, there is unlimited time and space.

Appealing to the five senses is the feature that will always set writing apart from the visual media. A good writer will tell us what the world smells like, what the textures are, what the sounds are, what the light looks like, what the weather is.