It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.

This is what self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.

I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

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

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.

It is much easier to be flexible about where a story begins than it ever was for me to change my mind about where and how a story ended.