Without curiosity a writer is dead.

People, no matter the economic class, find ways to feed their narcissism.

I learned I could be miserable anywhere in the world. I learned I really was an American.

Wanting to know all kinds of things is perfect for novelists, because novelists are generalists. We're not specialists in anything, except, hopefully, writing.

Being in Europe had helped me unlearn some of what I'd been taught or unconsciously believed.

People are less focused on the story, and more on how the story is told.

I'd studied English literature and American history, but the English literature, which I thought was going to be helpful to me in an immediate way, was the opposite. So I had to un-think a lot of things and move out of my own head, and I learned a lot. It was like graduate school, but an un-graduate school or an un-school.