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

I can't imagine writing if I didn't have a reader. Any more than an actor can imagine acting without an audience.

Discovery still happens in the writing. You start in nonfiction with a whole lot more going for you, because all the discovery isn't waiting to be made. You've made some of it in the research. As you get deeper into a piece and do more research, the notes are in the direction of the piece - you're actually writing it.

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

I read so ravenously that I would read through whole categories. I was crazy about reading biographies. [...] I think biographies are very urgent to children.

People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.

It's hard to find a book that's safe to write. Because one always goes to dark or difficult places.