The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day-a way of relating.

celebrate while you can

I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.

Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork.

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.

Food doesn't exist, but can only be invented. And reinvented.