When I began to write novels, I wanted to keep that element of interaction with the reader that exists in poetry, not just for the reader to be shepherded from A to B to C to D but to participate, and the less you say sometimes, the better it is. You know, it's the way when someone speaks very quietly, you move forward so you can listen more carefully.

The rulers of the country generally believed that betting eliminates strikes. Men had to work in order to gamble.

So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons.

From this point on, she whispered, we will either find or lose our souls.

Nowadays he doesn't think of his wife, though he knows he can turn around and evoke every move of her, describe any aspect of her, the weigh of her wrist on his heart during the night.

When I read biographies, I skip the first thirty pages about the childhood because it doesn't seem interesting to me.

As someone who writes novels that are often set in other periods of time or other ages or other landscapes, there's a certain element of research I have to do, and often, the more laconic people are, the more interesting they become.