If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.

In terms of writing, I think what most fiction writers treasure more than anything is the feeling that they're living for the length of a book inside another person.

And she, the new mother of a daughter, felt a fierceness come over her that seized at her heart, that made her feel as if her bones were turned to steel, as if she could turn herself into a weapon to keep this daughter of hers from having to be hurt by the world outside the ring of her arms.

I love writing from enclosed spaces: you really learn about your characters when they have tight walls to push against.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

At least in my case, a very simple, regular, happy life makes for better writing.

Research is about following the gleam into the dark. It's also about being sensitive enough to know which fact is "the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders," as opposed to the fact that deadens and kills a delicate new project.