I am a writer. Imagining what someone would say or do comes to me as naturally as breathing.

When I am near the end of a book, I have to sleep in the same room with it.

I don't know what I think until I write it down.

Novels are almost like music or poetry - they just come to me in simple sentences, whereas I think my pieces get more and more complex ever since I've started using a computer.

Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.

Sometimes an actor performs a character, but sometimes an actor just performs. With writing, I don't think it's performing a character, really, if the character you're performing is yourself. I don't see that as playing a role. It's just appearing in public.

Why do you always have to be right. Why do you always have to have the last word. For once in your life just let it go.