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.

If you think about it, fiction is nothing more than gossip about the people you've made up.

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

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

You will feel discouraged; you will lose confidence in your abilities; you will be bored with the characters–and the only way to overcome these obstacles is to write your way through them. And writing always works.

Fiction begins with the senses, and the senses go to work in a place.

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.