But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past.

she had a laugh that hinted it had rolled around once or twice in the mud.

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

People don't write about kids; you have to give them a lot of freedom, and that causes anarchy and that causes farce.

There's a lot of thievery involved in writing. You're breaking into other people's spaces and other people's stories.

One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.