I write with a fountain pen. And then revise word by word and line by line so that the first draft of a scene is usually the tenth or so draft.

Reading is also a creative activity if you're doing it right. You can learn more from a story that's left the tracks than from a successful story.

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right.

You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.

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.

Reading honest literature makes you love the world. Knowledge and understanding are love. Reading educates our feelings and enhances our sympathy. When you read for understanding, you are fundamentally changed. You are a different person at the end of the story or the novel than you were when it began.

I learned to love stories by listening to them.