There's a general impulse to distract the grieving person - as if you could.

In the absence of a natural disaster we are left again to our own uneasy devices.

We imagine things — that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. ... We have no choice, so we do it.

The minute you start putting words on paper you're eliminating possibilities.

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

I was in love with New York. I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that way again.

I have never started a novel - I mean except the first, when I was starting a novel just to start a novel - I've never written one without rereading Victory. It opens up the possibilities of a novel. It makes it seem worth doing.