If the book is a mystery to its author as she's writing, inevitably it's going to be a mystery to the reader as he or she reads it.

I take almost no notes when I write. I have one notebook - this old green leather notebook that my dad gave me a decade ago.

All my life I have arrived early only to find myself standing self-consciously on a corner, outside a door, in an empty room, but the closer I get to death the earlier I arrive, the longer I am content to wait, perhaps to give myself the false sensation that there is too much time rather than not enough.

The idea that we've outgrown ends up limiting us and we have to make a choice about what we're going to do in our lives.

Part of the work of writing a novel is to uncover the symmetries or connections that make it whole, which might not reveal itself at first.

Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad... I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.

There are times when the kindness of strangers only makes things worse because one realizes how badly one is in need of kindness and that the only source is a stranger.