They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.

If it weren't my life, I wouldn't have believed it.

One of the things that I love about writing novels is that it really doesn't matter what next step you take as long as you're pursuing some intuition or instinct. Of course, then, intuitions or instincts don't make for great novels, but they often make for good first drafts.

We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes.

We all choose things, and we also all choose against things. I want to be the kind of person who chooses for more than chooses against.

I flipped back through the pad of paper while I thought about what Stephen Hawking would do next.

For a long time, I thought I would like to be a doctor. Such a good profession. So explicitly good. Never a waste of time.