I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me.

Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done.

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?

Actually, my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full of them that I cherish but am afraid to look at.

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.

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

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.