These novels [Zombie, My Sister, My Love] are so special to me. [I don't expect that they will have nearly the same significance to anyone else.] They represent a kind of fiction I would love to pursue more or less constantly, but dare not.

Tragedy is the highest form of art.

It would be difficult for a writer of realism to avoid suggesting a political/moral perspective in his or her fiction. "Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.

The mere passage of time makes us all exiles.

And I’m drawn to failure. I often write about it, and I’m sympathetic with it, I think, because I feel I’m contending with it constantly in my own life.

All that matters in life is forging deep ties of love and family and friends. Writing and reading come later.

From Mother you will inherit the belief that you can journey to your fate, there's a place to be located on a map that's destiny. If only you can get there. If it isn't too late. If no one stops you.