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

I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Because the meaning of a story does not lie on its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not exist. Indeed, the ambiguity of meaning, its inner private quality, may well be part of the writer's vision.

Truths are the last thing you learn about your family. By the time you learn, you're no longer their child.

The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're looking at visual objects, I think our eyes are obviously directed outward, so there's not as much reflective time. And it's the reflectiveness and the spiritual inwardness about reading that appeals to me.

Writing allows for fictitious voices - the voices of persons unlike myself - that might otherwise be muted.