You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.

Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.

Nearly everything seems a letdown after a writer has finished writing something.

Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is.

Among adults – and among orphans – Wilbur Larch noted that delirious happiness was rare.

Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.

You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.