I have a good memory for early life. My visual memory is good about childhood and adolescence, and less good in the last 10 years. I could probably tell you less what happened in the last 10 years. I remember what houses looked like, sometimes they just pop into my head.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.

Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride, look down, and shake their heads as though disagreeing with life.

She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.

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

When you stood between somebody you loved and death, it was hard to be awake and it was hard to sleep.