Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.

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

No one could have fathomed what a life he'd led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.

Be serious. Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose.

When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.

Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either.

And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.