Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.

He couldn't figure out if she was immensely well adjusted or seriously messed up.

It's healthy to say uncle when your bone's about to break.

But she was seventeen now and not actually dumb. She knew that you could love somebody more than anything and still not love the person all that much, if you were busy with other things.

It's just a matter of writing the kind of book I enjoy reading. Something better be happening at the beginning, and then on every page after, or I get irritated.

And Silence of the Lambs is a really smart book.

The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world.