Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time.

What a moron I was to think you were sweet and innocent, when it turns out you were actually college-educated the whole time!

I wanted to forget the past, but it refused to forget me; it waited for sleep, then cornered me.