Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory.

I grew up in a family where, through my teenage years, I was expected to go to church on Sunday. It wasn't terribly painful.

A novel is a piece of architecture. It's not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It's a building-it has to have walls and floors and the bathrooms have to work.

…there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me.

Adolescence-is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?