As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

The facts, however, are unimportant in fiction. It's not the events of my life that I mine, but the emotional experiences I've had.

We all sleep with the corpses of our dead lovers.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

Writing a story, you understand, is not done by consensus. But we do learn from each other, and we remind ourselves how important this work we're doing is.

I used to believe that love and happiness were synonymous. I was a fool. Love intensifies all emotions. Nothing is so painful o so sweet, so thrilling or so desperate... Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love thats essential. You are never so alive as when you love, never so alert, intuitive, attentive, never so smart or so compassionate.

Place is character. And all writing is regional.