...I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next door to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace.

I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye.

I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have.

I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.

We are formed by what we desire

We will often do anything to pretend that nothing is on our minds.

I have no respect for the right-to-life position, though I have every respect for an individual who says, "I could never have that procedure, I could never see a film or read a book about that procedure." It doesn't bother me if people feel that way.