They made us participate in their own madness, because we couldn't help but retrace their steps, rethink their thoughts, and see that none of them led to us.

Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.

our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

One of the reasons that art is important to me is sometimes it actually feels more coherent than life. It orders the chaos.

I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life.

Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.