To be inclusive you must accommodate different levels of sophistication.

I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.

It's often said that a traumatic experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out of line, saying, "Stay there. Don't move.

She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.

no reason to mention my peculiarities, my wandering in the maze these many years, shut away from sight. and from love, too.

I remember liking to write stories pretty early on. In fourth or fifth grade, they would give us the beginning of a story, and we were supposed to finish it. I remember liking that. But I didn't think about deciding to become a writer until high school at about the age of 16.

Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say goodbye.