My characters are always on the outside; the spotlight's not on them. But they do get somewhere.

I didn’t want to tell the story of myself, but someone I called myself. If you read yourself as fiction, it’s rather more liberating than reading yourself as fact.

Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough.

I keep myself locked as a box when it matters, and broken open when it doesn't matter at all.

It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power.

There are two facts that all children need to disprove sooner or later; mother and father. If you go on believing in the fiction of your own parents, it is difficult to construct any narrative of your own.

Writers have to have a knack for listening. I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create.