Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.

I dream of writing a book like LOVERS some day. It is so spare but so rich. It is history made intimate, and a masterpiece of compression.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

I don't know why, but the older I get the more interested I get in my parents' marriage. And it's interesting to be married yourself, too, because there is an inevitable comparison.

Isolation offered its own form of companionship

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

With children the clock is reset. We forget what came before