There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.

I think I've learned to be mindful. I may not have taken the time to try to understand narrative techniques, let's say, with any rigor, if I did not also have to try to explain those techniques to someone else.

There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.

I lost my job and started painting houses with a friend. The marriage had ended about the same time the career did.

We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

I was always writing. I just didn't know if I was any good.